THE WORLD’S NO1 BUM
Thought the Kardashians were the original #bumgoals? Time to think again…
If you’re not familiar with Jen Selter’s face, you’ll definitely have seen her bum. The fitness model and social influencer is massive on Instagram – she has 11.4m followers and is able to charge companies like Nike and Lululemon a whopping £60,000 for a sponsored post.
Now, Jen – who is still only 23 – is launching her own line of fitness wear, turning an online business into a real-life one. She’s made the leap from online fame to super-stardom, helped by a high-profile new relationship with US boy band and reality star James Maslow from Big Time Rush, and she even counts Rihanna as a fan.
Faking it
But with fame comes haters, and Jen recently had to deny that her legendary bum was fake. “I thought of having an X-ray to prove my butt is real, but why should I have to do that to disprove something that is so obviously false?” she said last month. “My butt is not even big enough to be fake. If it’s big enough to look fake, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Jen got into fitness by accident. In 2012, after graduating from school, she was studying to become a make-up artist in New York and had a part-time job in the gym. She wasn’t that into the actual work (she says she got paid “$7.50 an hour and got treated like crap”), but she got to use the facilities for free. “I would take inspiration from the dedicated people who would come in every day, rain or shine,” she says. “I saw the changes in their bodies and became determined to change mine.”
Social working
A self-confessed “social media freak” who was “always on the computer” as a child, Jen documented her journey on Instagram and people were
really into her blend of fitspo and, er, #belfies, especially when she started the hashtag
#seltering, which gave tips on how to pose to make your bum look amazing.
“I was putting up photos of myself at the gym and started getting a lot of likes,” she says. “I went viral.” Within a year, Jen had 500,000 followers on her social networks and was getting paid by brands like Beats By Dre to feature their products, so she quit her job to make Instagram her full-time occupation. By 2014, she was appearing on US TV shows Good Morning America and The View, and in magazines such as Intouch, and the following year, she was so popular that a photo of her bum on Instagram would pull in thousands of new followers (as opposed to merely hundreds if she posted a photo of her dog).
Unlike Insta-influencers like Kayla Itsines and Emily Skye (see right), Jen’s not a qualified fitness instructor and has never trained anyone. Despite that, she’s launched her own fitness app, and has a free workout plan on her lifestyle blog. And she’s not done yet: this year, she wants to be seen as a proper influencer (not just a bum).
“No one really knows my personality. It’s interesting how I’ve built a following of fans who like me when they don’t really know me,” she says. “I’m one of the friendliest, nicest people out there. I think I would gain another million if people really knew who I was.” n