Dressed in a skimpy bra top and underwear, a spread of junk food would be laid out before her.

Ice cream, cookies, fried chicken and peanut butter were her regular co-stars.

Ms Donna Simpson, 46, would then indulge in all of this junk food in front of an audience of thousands via her webcam.

Paying a monthly subscription of US$12 (S$15), her mostly male viewers would then watch her lick copious amounts of peanut butter from her fingers or devour scoop after scoop of ice cream. Consuming 15,000 calories a day became normal.

Ms Simpson, who is from Ohio, US, tells The New Paper on Sunday in a Skype interview: "I earned at least US$12,000 a year doing Internet videos for these men.

"It was just seeing someone of my size eating that was a turn-on for these men.

"The fuller my belly, the sexier I was," she says. "Some men would even pay for my food."

Ms Simpson has since stopped providing the "service".

At her "peak", the mother-of-two weighed a hefty 272kg.

It all began when she met Mr Philippe Gouamba in 2006 in a chatroom for big women.

They moved in together shortly after.

Mr Gouamba would often take photos of her in bikinis. This progressed to recording videos of her while she was eating at a buffet.

"He suggested I get paid for these recordings. Then it began..." she says in a resigned tone of her sudden online fame.

"I did it all for him. I didn't feel comfortable at all. It was very strange for me and I didn't enjoy it.

"But it was good money."

For much of her life, Ms Simpson had been asked to lose weight by her parents and was bullied in school.

"My classmates would moo when I was around. They called me a cow. I was also called other names like 'Fatty four eyes'," she says matter-of-factly.

Even her teacher joined in the teasing by constantly identifying her as "the fat one".

The videos were not her only claim to fame.

In 2007, Guinness World Records declared Ms Simpson, who weighed 241kg then, the "World's Heaviest Mother" when she gave birth to her second child Jacqueline, now seven.

She has a 17-year-old son, Devin.

"I was constantly eating and made sure I didn't walk around much so that I could gain weight," says Ms Simpson, who has to use a mobility scooter to get around.

"I thought it would be an achievement to be proud of."

But what she wasn't proud of were her videos, recorded for men with fetishes for big, beautiful women - known as BBW - online. Miss Simpson says: "Philippe was someone who used me to live out his fetish fantasies. I would never date someone like him again. "I didn't like the way I was living my life and I finally decided to leave Philippe to start a new life."

She admits she needs to lose weight so that she can take care of her children.

"I want my children to lead a better life, so I have to live a healthier lifestyle and be able to perform simple tasks like taking a shower."

She says these days she walks more and junk food no longer has that great a hold on her.

"I eat more of the green stuff," she says. "Avocado and all that."

In fact, in the middle of the interview, she shows off her determination by munching on a carrot.

"I am definitely serious about changing. I even go to the gym, where I walk around in the hot water pool."

Right now, Miss Simpson claims she weighs 226kg.

She says proudly: "I have lost 60 pounds (27kg) in a year and I'm still shedding the pounds."

One of the ways she supports her family is by taking part in a Japanese reality show, which is yet to be aired.

She laughs when she talks about her Asian following. When she visited Japan in 2010, she didn't know how far her fame had spread. People went out of their way to give her gifts. She says: "It's nice to receive nice comments among all the hate mail."

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