Elizabeth Smart has spent more than two decades reshaping her public identity from one defined by tragedy into one defined by purpose. Now, in perhaps the most unexpected move of her post-captivity life, the advocate, author, and mother has stepped into a new arena entirely: competitive bodybuilding.
According to sources, Smart was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home at just 14 years old and held captive for nine harrowing months before being rescued in 2003. She recently competed at the Wasatch Warrior bodybuilding event in Salt Lake City. The competition marked her fourth bodybuilding show.
Smart admitted that just a few years ago, the thought of standing on a competitive bodybuilding stage would have seemed laughable to her. She would have rejected it completely. Today, she is not only standing on those stages, she keeps coming back. She also shared an Instagram post reflecting on the journey,.
For a time, Smart hesitated to speak publicly about this new chapter. She worried about how it would land with audiences who associate her name with advocacy and trauma awareness.
Ultimately, she chose openness over hesitation.
Speaking about her captivity on The Unplanned Podcast, she reflected on the thoughts that once threatened to overwhelm her during those nine months: “Is it worth surviving for everyone to look at me differently? Is it worth surviving if nobody is ever going to love me or want to be with me? I know I’m not alone in having those thoughts. I’ve met too many people who have shared those same thoughts with me to know that I’m not alone.”
What kept her anchored, she said, was an eventual clarity about what she still had to return to.
“Eventually, I realized that maybe I’d be looked at differently by people who didn’t know me, but ultimately my family would still love me and that would be worth surviving for. So, I needed to do just whatever I had to to survive,” she said.
After her rescue, her mother delivered words that have clearly stayed with Smart and shaped how she approaches every chapter of her life since.
“Elizabeth, what these people have done to you is terrible. And there aren’t words strong enough to describe how wicked and evil they are. They’ve stolen nine months of your life, but the best punishment you can give them is to be happy and not let them steal a single second more.”
Smart says that the advice resonates far beyond her own circumstances. “I think basically what it means is don’t give up on yourself. Like believe in happiness,” she said. “You might not feel happy right now, but believe it exists. Believe that you can have it. Keep reaching for it because you deserve it.”
Central to her worldview is a concept of forgiveness that she defines on her own terms, not as absolution for those who wronged her, but as an act of self-preservation.
“I think forgiveness is the greatest gift of self-love. It’s loving yourself enough to put down the weight of your past. Do I think kidnapping is okay? No. I’ll never be okay with it. Do I think hurting a child is okay? No. I will never be okay with any of those things,” she noted. “But I also love myself enough that I don’t want my history to hold me back. I don’t want my past to stop me from living my life the way I want to. And so I feel like I love myself enough that I’m not going to let my captors consume my energy, my time, my bandwidth.”
That same impulse to live fully and without apology appears to be exactly what drew her to the bodybuilding stage
