Welcome to the Dollhouse: A Conversation with Human Barbie, Nannette Hammond

In pursuit of my Human Ken interview, I started reaching out to Human Barbie candidates. This proved to be trickier than expected. With most of them located in Russia, there was a slight language barrier, though I did have a breakthrough with one—but more on that next week. To complicate things even worse, many of the Human Barbies wanted compensation for an interview, which I politely explained wasn't our jam, or they were picky about what we could talk about. "Which questions will be asked during the interview?" one potential candidate asked me. Well, isn't that what the interview is for in the first place?
With her warm personality, Nannette Hammond, proved to be the saving grace of the category. I emailed her to set up an interview, and not long after I sent out my request, she did me one better—she called me back. After being ghosted a handful of times before this point, it was a very welcome surprise. Hammond's story is definitely an interesting one. She lives in Cincinnati and is a mother of five. Not long after allowing her daughter to get an Instagram account, Nannette got her own, and her "Human Barbie" image was born. Her fanbase grew particularly big in the U.K., so much so that the Daily Mail flew out to Ohio to photograph Hammond in her real-world Barbie Dream House, complete with a dressing room and pink convertible. Talk about living your best life. Still, she remains pretty grounded, which was evident in her humorous, candid tone as we joked about Cincinnati chili—they do this thing in Cincinnati where they put chili on spaghetti, and it pretty much sounds like the stuff dreams are made of. She may not be a real Barbie, but with her whole "you do you " attitude, she's probably the realest. Scroll down to read our Q&A in full below.

Can you tell me about your childhood? What was it like growing up?
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and basically lived here my whole life. I was blessed with two amazing grandparents that basically raised me and I lived a pretty blessed upbringing. I liked Cincinnati and we have a lot of friends and family here, and that was pretty much it.
What are your reactions to being called a Living Barbie? , that... something you were going for, or did it just kind of happen?
I guess how it all became what it is today was with my daughter. I told her that she could have one social media account, so she picked Instagram. I got on that as well—I had never even done Facebook before, but I did that, and before you know it, the UK was very interested in my lifestyle and me. The Daily Mailcame to my home for two days and they took pictures and videos of me and the kids, then it went viral. I wasn’t planning on any of this by any means, but it is what it is, and I feel like on my Instagram, I always say positive things. You know, to love yourself, love your body, and just be yourself.
When I was little, I did play with Barbies a lot. I just thought Barbie was beautiful and I changed my hair color to platinum blonde about 12 to 15 years ago. I liked the blonde, and with my plastic surgeries and stuff like that—I started plastic surgery in my 20s. I had a breast augmentation, and it all kind of went from there. I never wanted to look like Barbie or anything like that, I just sort of enhanced what I had, and had fillers, Botox, hair extensions, eyebrows and all of that.
I just started changing different things here and there starting in my 20s because I was a nurse for a plastic surgeon. I got a lot of perks from that, and when you’re working in that field and you see the pre-op and post-op results, it’s really amazing the changes that can occur with your face, breasts, or anything else. I’m all for that. I’m all for anything that makes you happy and every person is their own. If you don’t like it, then move on. I can’t stand people who are negative, and I live a blessed life, and it’s mine, so that’s that.

That was actually one of my next questions—how do you deal with or respond to people who are negative toward you?
I never, ever respond to anything negative on my posts. I just won’t do that, but it’s funny, because my followers who are friends of mine will come at them and sort of take care of that for me. I’ll be honest with you – it doesn’t faze me at all. It really doesn’t. I could care less. You could say anything to my face and it doesn’t faze me. I try to always be the bigger person, and I teach my kids that as well. One thing I’m grateful for is that they go to a private school, and each kid probably has only 25 people in their class, and never once have they ever been bullied about what I’m doing. I tell them, if they ever see a post that has something negative, we overlook that and we’re better than that. People are just mean, and if they say something bad about me, then they’re just miserable in their own lives. My kids get that.

It’s a good lesson because I feel like especially now, kids are super-immersed in social media.
Absolutely. They’re very supportive and I’m very lucky. I have to tell you, my kids are great and they are my world. I live in a huge house—we have 10 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms, but I clean the whole thing myself. I don’t have maids. I don’t have a nanny, I don’t have any of that. I enjoy waking up in the morning with my children, making them breakfast, driving them to school, picking them up, doing homework, then cooking dinner. It’s very orderly in my house. I don’t even have laundry baskets in my house, because we get same-day service. We have 3 washing machines, and I’m constantly on the go, but it all works.