What Happened To The 3-Year-Old 'Oprah Show' Guest Who Was Obsessed With Her Looks?

From the time she was 3 years old, Jordyn Porter was preoccupied with her looks every waking moment. She demanded to wear makeup, became inconsolable when her hair was messy and spent hours glued to the mirror checking out her appearance. Her mother, Margie, worried about Jordyn's obsession and opened up about her struggles with the toddler on a 2006 episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

"The worst fights are the lipstick," Margie said back then. "She comes and tells me, 'I don't look beautiful! I want lipstick!' And she wants me to buy her makeup."

When Margie refused these requests, Jordyn would scream, cry and tell her mother, "I hate you" and "I don't love you."



Margie felt lost, and couldn't help but feel the pain of her own childhood resurfacing in her daughter's insecurities. "I do not recall ever being told, 'You're beautiful,' so I'm constantly telling her how beautiful she is," Margie admitted. "I just don't want her to feel the way I did... But I've missed the mark in making her feel the inner beauty."

Her biggest fear as a mother, she added, was what Jordyn's obsession with looks would mean for the girl's future. "I'm scared of where my daughter will end up in 10 years," she told Oprah.

It's now been nine years since that show, and "Oprah: Where Are They Now?" recently caught up with both Margie and Jordyn, now 12, at their home in New Mexico.



"After the show, one of the aha! moments was that I needed to reflect upon the way I was projecting out to my daughter," Margie says in the above video. "And [start] looking within myself to see what I was doing and what I could change so that she can get a more positive outlook."

Today, Jordyn says that she has learned to better appreciate her inner beauty. "My mom always told me, 'When you be kind to others and whenever you're sweet, you're beautiful on the inside," she says. "So... whenever I'm being nice and sweet, I feel beautiful."

Now a middle school student in the sixth grade, Jordyn juggles a full schedule of extracurricular activities and academics. "I got the lead role in my school play, I am a cheerleader for my school and I have gotten straight-A's," she says.

Yet, even with her accomplishments and sense of inner beauty, she still admits to experiencing some of her old insecurities.

"I still do struggle with the way I look, and it's really hard," Jordyn says. "Journaling really helps me because I can just write down my feelings and let it go."

Margie, of course, is always ready with words of support and encouragement.

"I help Jordyn on the tough days by always repeating how beautiful she is, all her wonderful qualities," Margie says. "I just try to remind her that I love her with all my heart... She is beautiful both on the inside and on the outside."

"Oprah: Where Are They Now?" airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.



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