A middle-aged adult female wears a relaxed fit, pink and white tie-dye V-neck short-sleeved shirt with small earrings on an urban brick wall background. 3:03
KSDK News channel icon KSDK NewsOriginal creator 121K views Save

The mom mocked for her smile gets a new one

Two friends had just gotten engaged, and Jessica McDaniels was the one taking their picture. Then someone took one of her, smiling, and strangers online turned it into a cruel joke. more

The picture spread around the globe, and people mocked her teeth. Some went much further. “Some was like, you should have no kids,” she says, a tear on her cheek.

Jessica McDaniels stands near a brick wall, looking off to the side, with a tear on her cheek. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Jessica talks about the strangers who mocked a photo of her smiling.

Her teeth had been a problem since she was small. The adult ones didn't come in until she was 12, and they grew in crooked, with a bad overbite. Dentists said surgery was the only fix, but it cost thousands. She had already had nine surgeries on her hearing between the ages of 2 and 12, and her family could not afford another.

She had been teased about her teeth as a girl and thought that part of her life was over. Seeing it start again, from people she had never met, brought all of it back.

Help came from an old school connection. Krystal Starks, a former classmate who hadn't been close to Jessica in high school, heard about the bullying and set up a GoFundMe for the surgery. The goal was $10,000, and it came close.

Thousands of people reacted to her story, and two doctors offered to do the work for free. One of them wanted to help because of the way Jessica handled the whole thing. “I just thought, I have the ability to help her.”

A middle-aged adult female wears a relaxed fit, pink and white tie-dye V-neck short-sleeved shirt with small earrings on an urban brick wall background. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Two friends had just gotten engaged, and Jessica McDaniels was the one taking their picture.

On the day of the surgery, her family gathers in the waiting room. It's the day they have been hoping and praying for. “It's like a miracle,” one of them says. “My baby gets another chance at life.”

The change took some getting used to. For the first two days after surgery, she didn't look in the mirror. “I had been like that for 32 years,” she says. “It was like, who are you? Who are you now?”

Now Jessica wants to give the same chance to others. She plans to start a nonprofit called Smile With Me to help people living with dental problems. “I'm just so happy,” she says.

A woman with dark dreadlocks smiles, wearing a pink tie-dye shirt and small earrings. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
With her new smile, Jessica plans a nonprofit to help others with dental problems.

She has two sons, and the older one put it best. “Mommy,” he told her, “I never knew something was wrong with your smile before.”