an American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs.

Curated by Jason Forrest

Total Runtime: 0:16:18

Aimee Mullins (born 1976 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs.

Background

Mullins was born with fibular hemimelia (missing fibula bones) and, as a result, had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was a year old. She is a graduate of Parkland High School in Allentown and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

While attending Georgetown University, she competed against able-bodied athletes in NCAA Division I track and field events. She competed in the Paralympics in 1996 in Atlanta, in which she ran the 100-meter dash in 17.01 seconds and jumped 3.14 meters in the long-jump.^[1]

Also while at Georgetown, Mullins won a place on the Foreign Affairs internship program, working at The Pentagon. She also makes appearances as a motivational speaker.

Fashion model

In 1999, she modelled for British fashion designer Alexander McQueen in his London show, on a pair of hand-carved wooden prosthetic legs made from solid ash, with integral boots.^[2] She is able to change her height between 5 ft 8in and 6 ft 1in by changing her legs.^[2] She has been named one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world by People.

She also appeared in Dazed & Confused Magazine in 1998, seen on Coverage, and in Kenneth Cole's anniversary Campaign (2010). She is also part of the L'Oréal fashion Beauty Team along with Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani (2011).

Actress

In 2002, she appeared in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 as a cheetah woman (the Entered Novitiate and Oonagh MacCumhail). In 2006, she appeared in World Trade Center, playing the role of a reporter. She also appeared, in 2003, in the made-for-television version of Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs, as the woman who asks Hercule Poirot to clear her dead mother of murder.

She appeared on The Colbert Report on April 15, 2010 and declared having 12 pairs of prosthetic legs, with "some in museums".^[3]