Gabe was put up for adoption at nine months old
Gabe Adams-Wheatley is a social media influencer who really deserves her social media stardom.
Age 22, Gabe has overcome more obstacles and challenges than most people could ever imagine, let alone face.
Born in Brazil with a severe form of Hanhart Syndrome, a rare condition that caused her to be born without legs or arms, she was put up for adoption at 9 months old.
Gabe, who recently came out as trans, was adopted by a family in Utah, and told PopSugar: “When they were adopting me, my mom was pregnant with her 11th child; she now has 13 of her own biological children, and I am her only adopted child.
Gabe now has over 180,000 followers on Instagram and 4m followers on TikTok where she shares makeup tutorials, beauty challenges, and ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos, along with offering her followers glimpses of her day-to-day life without limbs.
And she does it all with a big smile on her face.
Gabe grew up in a Latter-day Saints home, so being gay was something she didn’t feel comfortable talking about until she was 19. She told her parents that she wasn’t going to change and if they wanted to be in her life, they would need to accept her. And they did.
She now credits her adoptive family’s unconditional love and support, for helping shape her into an independent and capable person.
After finishing school, Gabe worked as a motivational speaker for a little while, touring schools and businesses to try and make a difference in her community.
But makeup and beauty were always her dream. She told Queerty in 2021: “I have four sisters, and they’re all gorgeous, and my mum is also stunning.
“I always loved just sitting there watching them do their makeup and how each one of them did it so differently – whether that was starting with their eyeshadow first or starting with their foundation first.”
When covid hit, Gabe realised “this is the perfect point for me to actually do something that I want to do”. She quit her job and went all-on on making make-up related content for social media.
She explained to Popsugar: “The first video I ever posted, it was just from the neck up, and there were a bunch of comments saying, ‘Why is [she] doing it this way?’ and ‘What’s going on?,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, I need to show that I actually don’t have arms and legs in the beginning of the video to people understand,'” she recalled.
“When I started to do that, the videos skyrocketed.”
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