Maddy Warner: I’m 7'3", Not 7'5"

I wasn’t going to write this because every time you explain yourself on the internet you look a little guilty, even when you did not do anything. But I keep seeing the same comments, the same repost captions, the same weird arguments under pictures of me where strangers are confidently correcting my height, my body, my job, and apparently my existence.

So fine.

Hi. I’m Maddy Warner. I’m from Herndon, Virginia. I’m 7'3". Not 7'5". Not 7'6". Not “basically eight feet.” Seven feet, three inches.

That is already a ridiculous number. I promise nobody needed to add two inches for drama.

I don’t know where 7'5" came from. Somebody probably posted it once, somebody else repeated it, then it got copied into a caption, and now half the internet says it like they personally held the tape measure. I have seen people argue with my actual page about my height. Like I’m sitting there in my own body reading a comment from a guy named something like diesel_wolf_843 telling me, “Nah she’s 7'5 easy.”

Sir, I have been measured more times than you have changed that profile picture.

I am 7'3".

The funny part is that people act like 7'3" is the modest number. Like I’m trying to downplay it. I still duck under almost every doorway. I still have to think before I get into cars. I still can’t buy jeans like a normal person. I still hit my head on things that most people never even notice. I still have strangers stop walking in the middle of Home Depot and just stare at me like their brain is buffering.

So no, I’m not secretly 7'5". I’m just actually 7'3", which is more than enough to make a normal kitchen look like a dollhouse if I’m standing in the wrong spot.

And then there’s the other comment.

“She’s AI.”

I knew that one was coming eventually, because everything is AI now. Every pretty person is AI. Every tall person is AI. Every photo where the lighting looks slightly too good is AI. Every woman with proportions people aren’t used to seeing is AI. If a picture goes viral and there’s anything unusual in it, somebody shows up with the confidence of a forensic investigator and says, “Look at the hands.”

I have very normal hands. They are just big because I am seven foot three.

People do this thing where they don’t realize their own eyes have never had to process someone my size in an ordinary room. They’ll say the cabinets look too low, the fridge looks too small, the counter hits me wrong, the shorter girl beside me looks tiny, the doorframe looks fake.

That’s not the photo being fake. That’s just what it looks like when I’m in a normal place.

I think people expect height to look cleaner than it does. Like if a woman is over seven feet tall, she should look like some perfect sports documentary shot with a white background and professional lighting. But most of my life is not that. Most of my life is fluorescent lights, bad mirrors, kitchen counters, parking lots, store aisles, sweatpants that are never long enough, and people trying to sneak photos of me while pretending they’re texting.

I work part-time at Home Depot. Yes, really.

That detail always makes people laugh, which I understand. A 7'3" woman working at Home Depot sounds like somebody made it up too neatly. But it’s also exactly the kind of job where being tall is useful in a very boring way. I can reach the top shelf. I can see over displays. I can carry long stuff without it dragging. I get asked where things are by people who assume I work there even when I’m off shift, because apparently if you are tall and wearing orange, you become part of the building.

The worst is when I’m in the aisle and someone spots me from far away. You can see the thought travel across their face. First they look at my head, then they look down to see if I’m standing on something, then they look back up, then they whisper to the person next to them. Sometimes they’re nice. Sometimes they’re awkward. Sometimes they ask if I play basketball before they even say hello.

For the record, I played volleyball.

I know. Shocking. Tall girl played volleyball. Stop the presses.

I did play, though. I was good too. Being 7'3" now, people imagine I must have been this giant cheat code in high school, and honestly, by the end, I kind of was. I didn’t have to jump much to block. Coaches loved me. Other teams hated playing against me. Parents in the stands would say things like, “How old is she?” loud enough for me to hear, which was always fun when I was already self-conscious and trying to pretend I didn’t notice everybody looking.

Volleyball gave my height a place to go. That’s the best way I can explain it. On a court, it made sense. In a hallway, it was just a problem. In class pictures, it was a problem. In cars, problem. At school dances, problem. At the mall, problem. But at the net, everybody suddenly acted like this weird body I had was a gift.

I liked volleyball. I didn’t love being treated like volleyball was the only acceptable reason for me to exist at this height.

That’s part of why modeling is different for me.

With modeling, especially the height-focused stuff, people assume it’s just about being stared at. But I was already being stared at. That started way before cameras. At least with a shoot, I know why I’m being looked at. I have some control. I can decide the outfit, the pose, the setting, the way the comparison is shown. I can be part of the joke instead of just standing there while strangers make me the joke.

And yes, I know some of the photos look crazy. They look crazy to me sometimes too.

There’s one from a kitchen where I’m sitting on the floor and the cabinets behind me make me look like I’m in a child’s playset. There’s another where a shorter woman is standing next to me and people argued for days that she had to be edited smaller. She wasn’t. She was just normal height. I’m the strange measurement in the picture.

That’s the part people don’t get. I don’t need anyone edited shorter. I don’t need fake scale. I don’t need a warped doorframe. I don’t need AI. Put me next to a regular 5'4" woman and the photo already looks impossible.

There are people who say, “No woman is built like that at 7'3".”

That one annoys me the most because what are you even basing that on? How many 7'3" women do you know in real life? People act like they have a huge sample size. They don’t. They have basketball players, old medical articles, a few viral clips, and whatever their brain thinks “very tall woman” is supposed to look like.

I’m not built like every tall woman. Every tall woman is not built like me. That’s how bodies work.

Some tall women are narrow. Some are muscular. Some are lanky. Some are curvy. Some look like athletes. Some don’t. I have long legs, broad shoulders, big hands, big feet, and yes, actual shape on me. That doesn’t make me fake. It makes me a person with a body that does not match the three examples you have in your head.

And before someone says it, yes, photos can make anyone look different. Angles matter. Lenses matter. Bad lighting can make you look like you were assembled in a lab. I have seen pictures of myself where I look amazing and pictures where I look like an exhausted giraffe in leggings. That’s not AI. That’s being photographed.

The weirdest thing is when people demand “proof” like I owe them a government hearing because they saw one viral post. They want a measurement video, then if you post one they say the tape is fake. They want a doorway comparison, then they say the doorway is custom. They want other people in frame, then they say the other people are edited. There is no proof for someone who already decided you’re fake.

So I’m not writing this to convince those people. They’re going to believe whatever is more entertaining.

I’m writing it because some people actually ask normally, and because I’m tired of the wrong height floating around.

Again:

My name is Maddy Warner.

I’m from Herndon, Virginia.

I’m 7'3", which is 221 cm.

I used to play volleyball.

I work part-time at Home Depot.

I model with Titan Cast Models.

I am not 7'5".

And in the world of Maddy Warner, I am not AI.

I’m just very, very tall, and the internet has forgotten that sometimes reality looks fake when you’ve never stood next to it.