COWERING inside the train toilet, Traitors winner Meryl Williams held her breath as a group of teens hurled abuse outside.
Three years after scooping £33,683 as one of three victorious contestants on series one of the hit BBC show, Meryl is still being targeted by bullies.
And the harassment has taken such a heavy toll, it has driven the 29-year-old Scot to desperate — and painful — measures.
Meryl, who previously worked as a call centre agent and is now a full-time content creator, is one of an estimated 7,000 people living with achondroplasia (dwarfism) in the UK.
Since finding fame in 2022, she has used her growing audience of over 251,400 TikTok followers to chart her struggles.
These include her train ordeal last January, as well as trolls frequently posting cruel slurs online.
‘I’ve worked hard to feel comfortable’
But Meryl has also used the platform to detail life-changing cosmetic surgery she’s had,, including a forehead reduction in 2023 and a boob job in November.
While her most recent procedure was largely cosmetic, US research shows that 29 per cent of people with dwarfism will have at least one orthopaedic surgery during their lifetime.
Meryl, who has gone from a 32B to a 32D, says the procedure has boosted her confidence and left her hopeful of finding love.
“I might be the height of an eight-year-old, but I’m not a child and I want to feel sexy,” says 4ft 2in Meryl.
“My friends have all got their cleavage out, so why can’t I?
“I’ve lived my whole life with people staring, but these surgeries were for me and certainly not about male attention.
“It was about finally feeling comfortable and proportionate in my own body. Confidence changes how you carry yourself and people respond to that.”
For Meryl, her £7,500 forehead surgery was as uplifting, mentally, as her recent breast enhancement.
“They cut along the hairline, which sounds a bit gruesome, and shaved down the bone a bit,” says the star, who also had corrective spinal surgery in 2011 and a procedure to realign her jaw in 2019. “Then they just pull the hairline down.
“It’s now where I feel my forehead should have been.”
Despite the risks, Meryl doesn’t regret her surgeries one bit. “I feel so happy,” she says. “My forehead was something I was so self-conscious about my whole life.
“I’d accepted my condition and my disability, but it was something that I really wanted to change.
“Although people don’t think I have had anything done, it still looks much better to me.”
My boobs were not in proportion to my body and I was experiencing extreme back, neck and shoulder pain.
Meryl
Meryl was born in South Africa and moved to Essex as a child, then, later, to Scotland.
Her most recent op was carried out at Cosmedicare in Livingston, West Lothian.
But she is no stranger to breast surgery. At 16, she had a dramatic breast reduction on the NHS, taking her chest down from 28FF to 32B.
“My boobs were not in proportion to my body and I was experiencing extreme back, neck and shoulder pain,” she recalls.
“I used to have to carry them up the stairs — they went down to my belly button.
“I was a size 8-10, but would sometimes have to go up to a 16 because of my boobs.
“My gran used to have to alter my bikinis because I could not get any to fit.”
Despite the physical relief after her reduction, Meryl says that emotionally, it was “more complicated”.
She adds: “I felt my skin had lost its elasticity and my breasts didn’t feel perky any more. That affected my confidence more than I expected.
“I started only wearing clothes that covered me up, just like I did before my reduction.”
Prices for a breast uplift and implants are around £10,500 and Meryl loves her results, having previously gone from “so much boob to no boobs”.
She adds: “I am planning a holiday in March to celebrate a friend’s birthday, so hopefully I’ll be able to show them off.
“I’ve worked hard to feel comfortable in my body and I plan to enjoy that and not hide it.”
It’s a happy turnaround for the star, who says that after The Traitors, she actively went looking for hate on social media. “It was morbid curiosity,” she explains.
“I wanted to know what people were saying so I could prepare myself, but I’ve since learned that constantly searching for negativity only reinforces it.
“People see someone with my condition in pantomimes, so they think they can laugh at us in day-to-day life.
“I’ve had people hysterically laughing at me while I’m just walking my dog.”
There are fetishes with my condition and I’m very conscious about that. It is quite a common thing.
Meryl
Despite her outward optimism, it’s clear the constant scrutiny can grind Meryl down.
She says: “I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s hard. I’ve had to learn not to internalise cruelty from people who don’t know me.
“I mute, block or step away, and remind myself that abuse says everything about the person giving it, not the person receiving it. I also lean heavily on my best friends and family.”
Yet for every troll, there is a fan cheering Meryl on as she transitions from what she describes as a “very sheltered” life to being more independent.
Meryl, who says she has never dated or used dating apps until recently, is part of a new wave of women with dwarfism in the public eye.
She is following in the footsteps of Paralympic swimmer and Strictly star Ellie Simmonds, who Meryl describes as “an inspiration”, and comedian and influencer Fatima “Fats” Timbo.
But Meryl admits that being a “sexy” woman with dwarfism comes with its own anxieties.
“There are fetishes with my condition and I’m very conscious about that. It is quite a common thing,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to make sure my boob job was classy — natural-looking and not too big for my frame.
“But then, I also have to remember that this is my body and I shouldn’t do things on the basis of other people’s opinions.
“I’m trying to retrain my brain because I dressed very conservatively before, covering up in high-neck tops and trousers and wouldn’t wear a bikini.
‘Never been in love but I deserve it’
“Now, I want to wear low-cut tops, tight dresses and have the confidence to wear strappy bikinis.
“I feel sexy and I feel natural, like this is me.
“I feel like this is exactly what I was meant to look like.”
Meryl, who recently moved to London, is excited to see what 2026 has in store. “I’m going to be turning 30 soon and I see it as a reset,” she says.
“I’ll be heading out with friends, experiencing London life and working on myself.”
She is also dipping her toes into the dating pool for the first time, but don’t expect to see her on celebrity app Raya any time soon.
“I haven’t had a conventional dating history,” she says. “I’ve tried the usual apps like Tinder and Hinge, but they can be exhausting, especially when you’re visibly different, so I’m more focused now on meeting people organically.
“Dating as a little person comes with challenges and it’s taken time for me to unlearn the idea that I have to accept less.
“I have never been in love, but I know I deserve it and I don’t need to compromise.
“I just hope I can find someone who accepts me for me.”
