The Scottish Oompa Loompa who went viral after the disastrous Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow last year year looks unrecognisable.
Kirsty Paterson, 31, who played one of the infamous Oompa Loompas in the now-notorious themed event, looks worlds away from the miserable character she once portrayed as she shared a sizzling bikini snap from Australia.
The former performer, who became an unlikely internet sensation after videos emerged of the grim ‘immersive’ Willy Wonka event in February 2024, has since left her rainy roots behind to move to Melbourne.
Taking to Instagram, Kirsty stunned her followers in a leopard-print bikini as she relaxed on the beach while soaking up the sun.
She captioned the glowing snap: ‘Best decision ever! You will be seeing me in action very soon. Been a busy girl!’
In another selfie, the actress beamed in a baseball cap and wrote: ‘Becoming who I was meant to be.’
The smiling selfie is a far cry from the viral images of a forlorn-looking Kirsty dressed in a green wig, standing in a sparse warehouse surrounded by confused children.
The snap gained over 22,000 likes and fans flooded the comments with support, praising her glow-up.
The Scottish Oompa Loompa, Kirsty Paterson, 31, who went viral after the disastrous Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow last year
One person wrote: ‘I felt SO bad for you when I saw that photo. Have followed you since and taken great joy in you crushing it.’
Another said: ‘That’s quite the glow up in a year. Love this for you.’
Someone else added: ‘Glow up of the millennium.’
A fourth added: ‘This is why you never let bad situations define you for the worst. Use it as fuel sometimes.’
Parents were left furious in 2024 when they turned up to an ‘immersive’ Willy Wonka event and their children were left sobbing when it turned out to be a tiny bouncy castle and a small lollipop.
Irate parents slammed the £35-a-ticket event in Glasgow as ‘an absolute shambles’ after being promised ‘a universe where your dreams come true’ that would ‘make memories that will last a lifetime’.
Just 24 hours before ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’ at the Boxhub, organisers House of Illuminati posted pictures of a van full of props and said ‘it’s all coming together nicely’.
Yet families were left stunned when they arrived and were greeted with a near-empty warehouse with a few Wonka-themed props and a small bouncy castle, leaving distraught children in floods of tears.
Taking to Instagram, Kirsty stunned her followers in a leopard-print bikini as she relaxed on the beach while soaking up the sun in Melbourne
In another selfie, the actress beamed in a baseball cap and wrote: ‘Becoming who I was meant to be’
The snap gained over 22,000 likes and fans flooded the comments with support, praising her glow-up
The event was cancelled halfway through as angered mothers, fathers and grandparents demanded refunds.
Police officers were even called to the cancelled event and ‘advice was given’.
Despite organisers posting pictures on social media of thousands of sweets and lollies in the days leading up to the event, it was claimed by one parent their children were handed just a couple of jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barr’s limeade.
Speaking to Kate Garraway and Richard Madeley on Good Morning Britain at the time, Kristy said the only thing that stopped her leaving was seeing how excited the children were, adding that she did not want to let them down.
She said: ‘I got given the £1, Poundland inappropriate Oompa Loompa outfit and then I tried it on and we were all just laughing. Then I was contemplating, do I just walk out? This is just too much I can’t deal with this.
‘The other actors were amazing and I didn’t want to let them down and then I starting seeing the kids coming in and they were all dressed up and all cute and I just didn’t want to let them down.
‘It was just such a shame.’
The actress also revealed that the staff were given their scripts the night before the start of the event.
Police were called to an ‘immersive’ Willy Wonka event in Glasgow after it was cancelled halfway through
Yet families were left stunned when they arrived and were greeted with a near-empty factory with a few Wonka-themed props and a small bouncy castle
‘They told us this was going to be a pantomime style and that we were going to perform,’ she said.
‘They gave us the scripts the night before and I remember on the Friday when I went it looked like that… [an empty rubbish warehouse with nothing in it]. And I kind of thought to myself, surely they must have people working throughout the night for this to be better with lights and everything like that.
‘It was tablecloths and a bunch of Ikea mirrors.’
The disastrous Willy Wonka Experience went so viral, for all the wrong reasons, it was brought back to life in a shadowy warehouse in downtown Los Angeles a few month later, drawing a small crowd of oglers who’d each paid $44 to be there.
The group, who called themselves collectively as ‘The Unknown’, went full-throttle to recreate the Glasgow event.
Kirsty was the main attraction, and this time guests were treated to four jelly beans instead of just one.
Despite a well-stocked bar that sold chocolate covered magic mushrooms, the event failed to impress. Again.
‘We wanted to be as true to the original as possible,’ one of the anonymous organizers told DailyMail.com. ‘We thought there was genius in its creation of the Glasgow event.
Kirsty reprised her role as the ‘sad Oompa Loompa’ from the Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience, this time at a shadowy warehouse in Los Angeles
The event in Los Angeles last night drew on the disastrous Glasgow original with sparse decorations and no staff
Paterson was joined by a cast of other deranged-looking Oompa Loompas who carried signs demanding ‘reparations’. She previously complained about not being paid by the Glasgow organisers
Some of the Americans who attended the event did so with the sole intention of getting a photo with Paterson, an unlikely celebrity
‘There’s a saying, “It’s so bad that’s it’s good,” and I think that’s really what we wanted to bring to light here.’
A Channel 5 documentary exploring the fiasco – entitled Willy Wonka: The Scandal That Rocked Britain.
Kirsty revealed she was promised £500 for two days work. She took the role away from her day job, which sees her work as a fire performer and trainee yoga instructor.
Since the event went viral a photo of Kirsty dressed as an Oompa-Loompa standing by a chemistry set with fumes billowing out has led her to be described as a ‘m***-lab Oompa-Loompa lady’.
Speaking to MailOnline, she confirmed that not only had she not been paid she also hadn’t been briefed on what her role would involve.
She explained: ‘I was angry at the time because I felt like this is embarrassing for me, and I felt bad for the people coming in as well.
‘I actually ended up shouting at the guy. I just said to him he’s a joke and this is like embarrassing, and how can we basically live with himself, doing this to people.
‘This is really embarrassing for me. My job is teaching kids yoga and I go into schools and stuff and I do kids’ entertainment.
‘This is none of our faults at all. We got the job and then we got given the script.
‘By that point I’d signed a contract and they said they were going to put us £500 for the two days which is a lot of money which is a lot of money to say no to.
‘I got stuck to the jelly bean bit and by that point I felt awful. There was a part where they were saying it was like a science lab, and you were supposed to hand out jelly beans, and by that point they had run out of jelly beans, so I was just trying to make slightly exciting for the kids.
‘Then I walked off scene because I was so embarrassed.
‘I went mental about the guy and feel awful about the whole thing, like I really honestly do, and I walked off because I was just like feeling so s*** for the kids. The whole thing has just been awful.
‘The whole thing’s just been a complete and utter shambles. It was shocking honestly.’
After being lampooned mercilessly online, the entertainer has managed to cash in on the fudged event — by joining Cameo.
She posted: ‘Come get your own personalised videos with the famous weagie Oompa Loompa!’
She reportedly created the profile in response to a request from model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen: ‘Somebody get the Wonka meth lab girl on Cameo immediately — while it’s still hot,’ Teigen wrote in a recent Instagram story, according to Gizmodo.
Kirsty added that her rise to fame has felt surreal, given her success on Cameo, along with the amount of publicity she has received since the event went viral for all the wrong reasons last month.
Speaking to BBC Scotland News, she said: ‘We are just normal people, I can’t believe this has happened.
‘When we took the job we had no idea what we were walking into.
‘You just have to throw yourself in and play the character. We just had fun with it, that’s all you can do.’
She said: ‘We turned up on the Friday – bearing in mind we had already signed a contract by this point – we looked at the scene and it was just bizarre.’
