My sister has gone into hiding because of what she did to her daughter.

The Legacy of the Crown

My sister gave her daughter a handful of diuretics before a beauty pageant, then vanished while she had a heart attack on stage. When I finally tracked her down and begged her to tell the truth, she clutched her chest and gasped, “She’s been following me, threatening me.”

I just stared at her. That was 6 weeks ago. This morning, she was sobbing into her lawyer’s shoulder in court.

My sister has always been a beauty pageant enthusiast. Ever since she was little, our mother forced her to compete.

And because she was naturally pretty, she’d win basically every time. However, she got pregnant at 18, and her body never returned to the beauty it once had, her words.

So, she had to stop. Unfortunately, this meant that it was up to her daughter to continue the legacy.

From the moment her daughter could walk, she was forced into heels too big for her and made to walk in dresses that dangled on the floor.

She was four, wearing a corset, sitting perfectly upright with her hands neatly folded on her lap like Queen Victoria. It was disturbing to see.

My sister’s husband actually divorced her when their daughter was five because she entered their girl into a beauty pageant behind his back while he was on a work trip.

He came back to find his wife scolding her for coming in second. Unfortunately, she ended up spinning a lie and getting custody.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I just help out?

That’s a great question, one that can be answered by saying, “I worked abroad and had no idea about the actual extent of it all.” I really feel terrible about it, and I only found out recently when my niece was 10 years old.

She had won a qualifying pageant and was entered into a bigger one with all the prettiest girls. Apparently, my sister prepped her for this pageant tougher than ever before.

She fed her under 800 calories per day, which was especially awful because my niece was at that developmental stage where she really needed the food.

She made her exercise in full-on sauna suits like Hello the Girl is 10 years old and had her on a stack of supplements that Brian Johnson Mister live forever couldn’t rival. From what I know now, my niece would pass out and get on her knees to beg for her training to end.

But my sister would just point to the treadmill. I only found out that something was going on when my sister called me herself.

I heard the treadmill sound running and some loud thud in the background, but I originally dismissed it as just her being in the gym.

My sister told me she had great news. I hadn’t been back in the country for about two years, so she wanted me back on this specific date because she was hosting a party.

I later found out this party was supposed to be a celebration of my niece winning the pageant. I scrambled to get the leave approved and made my way down.

But when I arrived after my 16-our flight, I was picked up at the airport, not by my sister, but by her ex-husband, who I hadn’t ever spoken to before. Sorry, what?

Why was he here instead of my sister? I asked him that, but he just told me I needed to see it for myself.

He then led me to his car, where I wondered if I was going to end up on some black market video of a kidnapping. Turns out that wasn’t the case, but I kind of wish it was because the reality was even worse.

He took me to a hospital and when we walked into a room, I saw my niece, 10 years old, her face like a skeleton with skin, under eyes a dark purple, her fingers thin as thread. She was hooked up to IVs in critical condition.

I ran to check on her and when I turned back to my sister’s ex, I saw that he was genuinely crying. This 6’5 stoic man balling.

I was kind of lost on what to do, so I just awkwardly consoled him for what must have been half an hour before he managed to get what happened out. He had been out of the country himself for the last 2 months on a work trip, all while my sister prepped my niece for that stupid pageant while lying to him that she wasn’t.

On top of all the sauna suits and starvation diets I already mentioned, 3 days before the show, my sister cut my niece’s food completely.

Zero intake, water only. Her goal was to ensure that every single rib would show.

I repeat, every single rib. And if somehow that wasn’t bad enough, a few hours before the pageant, my sister gave my niece a handful of powerful diuretics.

For those who don’t know, diuretics drain your body of water and are so powerful at doing that that a known side effect of them is literally instant death by a heart attack. And she gave a handful of them, exactly what you might expect happened.

When my niece stepped on the stage, the bright lights overwhelmed her.

Her body lost the strength to support her, and her heart literally gave out. She collapsed on the stage in her heels and ended up falling off it and hitting the ground 3 ft below.

She fell directly on her neck, too. But by some miracle, it’s only sprained.

And doctors say there should be no long-term damage. Either way, my niece literally suffered a heart attack on stage.

And where was my sister when it happened? Nobody knows.

She literally disappeared. She wasn’t there when the ambulance was called.

She wasn’t in the hospital. She hasn’t even visited the hospital.

The only reason her ex found out was because my sister, aka my niece’s emergency contact, didn’t answer after 25 calls. So, the hospital called my niece’s dad, who got the first flight back home.

I’m currently at my niece’s hospital bed. She seems like she will thankfully end up okay, but I’ve told my whole family what happened, and we’re all looking for my sister.

And when we find her, God help her. The monitors kept their steady rhythm while I held her tiny hand, feeling bones that shouldn’t be this prominent through paper thin skin.