It’s been a wild week for the obviously over-it Oompa Loompa from that wonky “Wonka Experience” in Scotland — and now, she’s capitalizing upon her newfound fame.
For just $25 USD, anyone can get a pep talk or send birthday wishes on Cameo from Kirsty Paterson, the actress who played “your favorite Scottish Oompa Loompa,” as she calls herself in one of her videos.
Since the internet first learned about the “experience” organized by a company literally called “House of Illuminati” — which featured AI-generated visuals, an AI-generated script, pissed-off parents calling the cops, and an actor who has since been milkshake-ducked — Paterson has stood out as the star of this Glaswegian nightmare.
A photo of her manning what looks like a “meth lab” went viral, catapulting her into the middle of the conversation surrounding the disastrous event. Soon, people were referring to Paterson as the “Oompa Loompa queen,” creating fan art of her, and claiming she was a “mood.”
As photos from the event continued to go more and more viral, however, Paterson, who characterizes herself as a “pretty private person” in her first-ever TikTok post responding to the incident, began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.
It’s not hard to see why, given that, as the actress pointed out in subsequent interviews, people started focusing more on her looks than on the absolute wreck of an event she worked at.
In an interview with Vulture conducted at the height of the “Wonka experience” fallout, Paterson revealed that in real life, she’s a 29-year-old yoga teaching trainee, “fire dancer” and aspiring actress, which makes the turn to Cameo seem all the more appropriate.
Nevertheless, the actress said that she was pretty taken aback and upset at how viral her photo in particular had gone.
“I’m not going to lie or sugarcoat this: This has been quite a lot for me,” Paterson told Vulture. “I find it funny and I can make a humorous joke about it, but the flip side of this is that this is embarrassing for what I do, and I hope this doesn’t tarnish that.”
Both in Vulture and in a later interview with the BBC, the 29-year-old actress admitted that she turned her phone off for a few days to circumvent the overwhelming amount of attention she’d gotten, especially about her looks.
“I’ve got incredibly thick skin, and I’m always happy to make a joke of myself,” Paterson told the BBC, “but I think it did get a bit too much for me when it was outwith my control.”
While the actress has most often discussed people criticizing her looks, there have also been lots of posts about how attractive people found her as well — which could, at such a high rate of virality, easily cross the line between praise and objectification.
Out of respect for her privacy, we’re not reaching out to Paterson to ask her more questions about the candid photo that skyrocketed her to viral fame, but per our reckoning, choosing to start charging for Cameo videos does indeed seem like a healthy way to control her image and narrative.
While the “Wonka Experience” itself has been a masterclass in what not to do when organizing an event for children, Paterson has undeniably come out on top — even if it involved some discomfort along the way.
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