While composing a letter to her biological mother, Ellie Simmonds burst into tears.
The Paralympic gold medalist, who also appeared on the final season of Strictly with Nikita Kuzmin, just recently disclosed she was adopted when she was three months old.
Ellie, 28, from Walsall, began swimming at the age of five and was only 13 when she won two gold medals for Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.
Ellie, who has achondroplasia, is now retired and has lately dedicated her attention to locating her biological family, a process that has been documented for the documentary locating My Secret Family.
During shooting, Ellie uncovered the horrifying reality of why she was given up at only 10 days old, with her mom wishing she had died at birth after being informed by physicians that her daughter would be considered as ‘evil’ and ‘dumb’.
Ellie chose to write a letter to her biological mother before seeing her for the first time.
Reading out some of her notes to the camera, she said: ‘I’m going to tell her I’ve always known I was adopted from the start. I’m going to say I had photos of them, that I lived an incredible life.’
‘These are all bullet points. This is a big thing, the first letter. I’m going to tell her when I read the adoption notes it says you love being outdoors and are into horses and it’s funny because I love them.
‘I know from the photos I have you had curly hair, do you still have curly hair? I do, it’s lovely but it’s hard to manage.’
She continued: ‘I’m going to say I’m definitely not angry. I hope you understand that. I hope I can get to know you and find out about you. It seems like we have the same personality, again it might have changed now.’
It was at this point that Ellie then became emotional, tearing up before saying she didn’t know ‘why I’m crying’.
Elsewhere in the documentary, Ellie was able to read through her hospital records with the assistance of a specialist social worker and was horrified at what she saw.
Ellie’s mother was given an information leaflet after giving birth, which said that children with dwarfism “had to deal with being looked at and mocked at by other children” and that “there are individuals with normal height who link low stature with wickedness and ignorance.”
Ellie reflected on how fast she was placed for adoption, saying that it had not taken long to “decide a tremendous, monumental thing.”
However, she sympathised with her biological mother and commented on the fact that she was a single mom, attempting to put herself “in her shoes.”
While it is not seen on screen in the documentary, Ellie went on to meet her biological mother, with whom she stated she spent five hours conversing on This Morning on Wednesday.
‘I was so nervous, and we were supposed to meet and I got a migraine and had to cancel, but the second time I got to meet her, but that first moment we just embraced and hugged and it was the most amazing feeling,’ she said.
She went on to add that while she had only intended to spend 15 minutes conversing, the time flew by once the conversation got going.
Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family airs tonight at 9pm on ITV.