This Woman Is Walking 1,000 Miles Topless For Beautiful Reason “I want my walk to be proof, that no matter what the world defines as beautiful, I define me.” .....Paulette Leaphart is a breast cancer survivor

05/19/2016 06:08 pm ET

One woman is walking topless across the country to draw attention to the tough, but all-too-often hidden realities of breast cancer.

Paulette Leaphart is a breast cancer survivor, who had her breasts removed in a double mastectomy in 2014. On May 1, she began a 1,000-mile walk from Mississippi to Washington, D.C. — completely topless.

Paulette Leaphart is a breast cancer survivor

Her goal is to raise awareness about breast cancer, and to show other survivors that there is no reason to be ashamed of their scars.

“We have scars for a reason,” she says in the teaser for “Scar Story,” an upcoming film documenting stories of breast cancer. “They’re our story of survival. Scars let us know that hey, yes, I had cancer — and I kicked its ass.”

When pop star Beyoncé caught wind of Leaphart’s mission, she featured her in the video for her visual album “Lemonade,” according to Business Insider. The singer met Leaphart on set, and even offered to walk a mile of the journey beside her. About one in eight women in the U.S. will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society.

For black women, the problem is particularly severe: While they get breast cancer at slightly lower rates than white women, their mortality rate is 39 percent higherthan white women, according to Susan G. Komen. 

When Leaphart was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in 2014, her doctor recommended removing both her breasts, according to the teaser.

“I thought I was going to get some new [breasts]. I picked my size — I was ready for the new perky ones,” she says. “But that was short-lived. I wasn’t a candidate for other health reasons.” more