Personal experience of surviving a life‑changing injury and the journey toward rebuilding life shared at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026
At the World Economic Forum, Katie Piper reframed her survival of a 2008 acid attack as a leadership case study in resilience, identity, and systems change. She argued that progress cannot be reduced to “policy” and “finance” alone; “empathy and kindness and diversity are as critical in leadership as finance and policy.” Piper described how violence intended to destroy her appearance and confidence forced a deeper reconstruction: “identity needs to be self-authored.” Having been “ripped out of the male gaze,” she challenged the idea that beauty is women’s primary currency, noting how insecurity fuels consumption and control.
Publicly sharing her recovery in a 2009 documentary was a calculated risk in a pre-#MeToo culture of blame and stigma. The unexpected public response taught her that trauma is widespread and that community can replace isolation: “trauma is a fact of life… but it needn’t be a life sentence.”
Piper then converted personal experience into institutional action. After finding burn rehabilitation abroad, she created the Katie Piper Foundation to fund care, advocate for policy changes on acid sales and sentencing, and ultimately build a residential rehab centre in Liverpool. Her message to new survivors: “You will never recreate the old you… but that’s okay.”
Hello everyone. Welcome to the World Economic Forum and to our session here today, Scars of Survival how I rebuilt my life at 24. The writer, activist, TV presenter and model Katie Piper survived a life threatening acid attack and underwent pioneering surgery. In this conversation here today, Katie will talk about using her own personal experience to support and empower the lives of burn and trauma scar survivors. Welcome to all of you here today in the room. And of course, to those of you who are watching around the world. And a very warm welcome to you, Katie. Thank you so much for joining us here at the World Economic Forum. It's a real pleasure. Thank you for that introduction. Katie, why is it so important for you to be here at the forum as a cultural leader?
It's a very exciting opportunity for me to be here at the World Economic Forum. For me, it's a platform to be able to show that stories of adversity, trauma, resilience are essential when we're focusing on global progress. And actually often when we think about leadership, we think about policy, we think about finance. But actually what my story illustrates is that empathy and kindness and diversity are as critical in leadership as finance and policy.
You're an inspirational leader. You've helped so many others through sharing your own story, and you've also helped to reframe social and cultural perceptions around burn survivors and disfigurement. For the context of our discussion here, Katie, could you just share a little bit about what happened to you in 2008?
Yeah, my story has has been heavily documented in the UK and actually beyond, all around the globe. I've traveled all around the world, talking about my story, and it happened to me 17 years ago, March 2008, in London. And actually back then, my, what happened to me? This, this act of violence, domestic violence, however you label, it was incredibly shocking for the British media, the public and beyond. If I set the scene to you in 2008, we were really in the infancy of social media. Instagram didn't exist. X was Twitter. People were logging on to Facebook to upload digital camera photos. People didn't carry smartphones and connect with one another and document things in the way that they did. So I was a young 24 year old woman, and if you've read my story previously in tabloid media, you would see me described as a former model, a former TV presenter, which is actually a very generous description of my former career. Because, you know, we're sharing this room together today and you can see all five foot three of me and see that I wasn't quite Claudia Schiffer in the modelling stakes. And in terms of television, I was working on sort of shopping channels, quiz shows, that kind of thing. So I was very much aspiring. Like many young 20 somethings living in London, I was aspiring going to auditions and making enough money to pay my rent. And I think when I reflect on that time in my 20s, it was a career and a personal life that heavily relied on not just my appearance and my looks, but my levels of confidence and self-esteem. Which is why, I assume that when somebody wanted to hurt me, in fact destroy me, the method that they chose was to throw sulfuric acid into my face. Now, this happened to me in broad daylight. It actually happened in rush hour, 5 p.m. on a busy high street in north London. And, you know, if I was to say why it happened, which is a whole other topic in itself, why does domestic violence happen? Why why do violent relationships, still exist in our society? I rejected a man that I had begun to know in the very infancy stages of dating, who I had realized wasn't right for me. And his response to that rejection was, to sexually assault me, to rape me, to imprison me in a room, and then two days later to hire a hitman, to throw sulfuric acid into my face. So I appreciate that, you know, sat on this stage saying those words out loud to you. I find that hard to believe that even happened to me. But this is not a story of misery. My story is one of survival and hope, and it is demonstration of it is not what happens to you in life that will go on to define you. It's what you choose to do with it afterwards. We know those kind of cliche sayings about, you know, the hand, the hand of cards we get dealt in life. It's absolutely how you play those cards. And acid attacks were very rare in the UK when that happened. And actually, sadly, now data shows that they've been on the rise ever since in all different communities and cultures in the in the UK and beyond. And that story really sent waves through those communities. And my life ended and began all in the same time on that day.
It's extraordinary to hear you talk about it, Katie, and with such courage and clarity. And in 2009, in the midst of your recovery, you decided to publicly share what happened to you with the BAFTA nominated channel four documentary, Katie, My Beautiful Face. Was that a hard decision? At the time?
It was incredibly difficult because there's so many layers to my story. And again, 17 years ago, me too did not exist. Certain feminist platforms and accounts and homes where we can all go to, those safe spaces just hadn't been created. So we were still living in a climate where people said, well, what were you wearing when that happened? And why did you go there with him? So there was still that shame and that blame culture. Then separately, disability and facial disfigurement was very different. You know, now we see diversity in areas we just wouldn't have seen back then. So I think it was almost coming from a place of I had nothing to lose. Life was so bleak. Doors weren't open for me. I was facing rejection. But I think, really, I wanted to open up a more honest conversation around recovery because I was told by by experts and beyond that that was it. As a burn survivor with facial disfigurement, I would be dependent on my parents, I wouldn't work, I wouldn't marry, and that wasn't how I felt. And that certainly wasn't going to be the rest of my life. So I really wanted to open up an honest conversation. I wanted to invite the world in, to give me a voice. Because, you know, the justice system in the UK, it's very much set up for the perpetrator. If you go through the justice system as a victim, you really do lose your voice.
Is it changing now, do you think, Katie?
I think what? Doing that documentary all those years ago. It it meant I was able to start advocating for others. It meant I was able to start focusing on, really, my life's work. It was no longer about me. I didn't want to be defined by that act of violence. You know, these men had gone to prison. But I was in the outside world feeling imprisoned. So what I've been able to do, is I've been able to represent other people and I've been able to lobby UK government. I've been able to challenge policy, sentencing, the sale, the carrying, the decanting of sulfuric acid. I set up my own charity in 2010, based in the UK, and that really has been, an amazing platform for me to drive, change and challenge very stale old narratives.
I want to talk more about your foundation, Katie. But first, millions watched that documentary. Were you surprised by the impact? How did you feel when you realised that everybody knew what had happened to you?
It was a very difficult time actually, because up until release, you know, when you make a documentary, when you make a credible observational documentary, there is no timeline, there is no scripts. I mean, you'll know yourself. It's actually quite low budget. I had a female crew of just two women, and they came into my home with no lighting, and they just recorded me observationally for one year. And I was incredibly agoraphobic. I didn't leave the house, I had PTSD, and you've got to understand that, you know, as it turns out, working on the jewellery channel and QVC wasn't quite the level of notoriety and fame, where I was being recognised when I was out and about. So the only reaction I had is I would get people staring, whispering, the lift doors would open and people would leave the lift because they would think I was contagious. I would go into shops and Shopworkers would ask me to leave. So I only had this negative reaction to go on. So it was a gamble. It was a real risk. But if I trace back to childhood and and teens, before this happened to me, I was always a risk taker. You know, I always kind of put myself out there and that didn't leave me. And I think that's another message to me, to people is that actually you can touch somebody all over, you can mark the surface, but you can never, ever own another. You know, my spirit, my soul. These remain forever untouchable and intact. So I was still able to be that person and take that risk of putting myself out there. And I'm so glad I did. You know, I remember the director, a female director, Jesse, calling me the day after it transmitted on channel four. And when we think about the change in television.
Yes.
17 years ago, we had channel 1 to 5. We didn't have these other platforms where we consume content. So literally the UK would tune, I think it was like 4.2 million people watched that programme live and then obviously streamed thereafter. Then I made one with 60 minutes ABC and when she rang me and said, oh, you know, 4 million people watched it, I remember thinking 4 million people complained. That's what I thought she was saying, because I was in that mindset of being rejected. And I think that message said to me, people care, people understand. And then that went into physical demonstration of when I stepped out. It was sometimes the unsaid nod, the half smile, the acknowledgement from a lot of women, but some men as well. And there was this unity, and I'd created this community of yes, those women had not had sulphuric acid thrown in their face, but yes, they had experienced trauma. Yes, they had experienced rejection. Yes, they had experienced some form of abuse. And we saw that in me too. Some people were really shocked at how many people had had their own individual experience, that many of us weren't shocked at all. And all of a sudden there was this mutual understanding, and I realised, actually, this happens to all of us. You know, trauma is a fact of life on varying degrees, but it needn't be a life sentence.
Katie, was that the pivotal moment you think for you, realising that people could actually hear your story, and even if they had something different, they could resonate with that? And was that change life changing for you to realise how you could help?
Yeah, I think losing everything, first of all, there's no shame in starting again, you know, especially for women because of our biological clocks. We attribute shame to not being at certain places, certain milestones at different decades in our life. And what might have felt like a failure or that I'd messed my life up. I now realise I didn't need to sort of carry that kind of ball and ball and chain. And I think a real pivotal point for me was realising that, identity needs to be self-authored. You know, I was born in the 80s. I grew up in the 90s. And I was told that beauty was one of the most powerful currencies a woman can possess. And that actually, that would be where my my worth and my value would, would lie. And I realised that it wasn't true. And actually, sometimes that is a way to control us and keep us in a place that maybe benefits, other people. It keeps you a consumer, right? If we walk out of this room completely robust and confident it will affect the economy, we'll stop buying overpriced face creams and consuming fast fashion. You suddenly become very powerful when you rewrite that narrative. You know, I didn't step out of the male gaze. I was ripped out of it. Women naturally age out of the male gaze, or they feel that they do. Right. I was getting on the tube on Monday and men were giving me their seats, and on Tuesday people were slamming the door on me because I was a completely different identity. So it was some really deep work, deeper than the physical recovery that I went through. But but so amazing in your 20s, such a formative time. And it built a character in me that I don't know I would have ever tapped into.
Where do you think this resilience came from?
It's in. It's in each and every one of us. It's the human spirit. You know, sometimes we do this thing where we put celebrities or leaders on pedestals. I don't subscribe to that because sometimes then it makes them feel so far removed from us that we think, well, I can't do that because I'm not special or I'm not that person. The human spirit is in each and every one of us. But what actually happens in life? You know, I spent a lot of time, in a weird way, becoming fixated on death. Not in a morbid way, but I started reading lots of books from palliative care nurses of, people's regrets and how they feel. And actually, some of us don't ever find that strength of character until it's too late. Some of us don't know what our purpose is or what we should be doing with life until we retire. And I realised that, you know, I'd been given a gift that day. That day on the high street when my life changed forever, that many people from the outside would see negatively. The gift that I was given was to think that it was all over, and to learn that everything changes in a second, and to feel all of those regrets and what ifs and promises and bargaining chips to myself. But I wasn't in the palliative care ward, I wasn't terminal, I wasn't setting up, you know, GoFundMe pages and bucket lists. Because I was stage four, I was able to go into the future and feel all those things and come back and live differently. And that perspective at 24, a baby, right? You know, people get that perspective as a wise grandma. Yeah. You know.
Not at that age.
What a gift. You know, it's not the gift of not dying. It's the gift of being able to go into the future and come back and live differently and live intentionally. And that has changed the way that I operate on a daily basis every single day.
Tell me about the Katie Piper Foundation. You just mentioned it before. Tell me about the vision and what you've accomplished so far.
When I first started to document my story, whether it was through documentaries or my first autobiography, often in the media, you know, conducting an interview like this, I would be met with empathy that spilled into pity. Which was really interesting. You know, I was kind of British culture a little bit as well. You know, it comes from a good place. But also sort of very tired, old fashioned questions of what will you do now? Was it in your life plan to have children? Did you want to marry? And I realized that actually, back then, disability and diversity, around facial disfigurement. You know, I only saw people like that on television, appeals to raise money for them. We only talked about them in school to fundraise for them. We certainly didn't tell young girls, that those sorts of people could be the CEO, a trailblazer, start a small business, be desirable, sell a perfume, a makeup, have sexual relationships. You know, they just weren't seen like that. I mean, really a very transformative time, particularly in London, was 2012 when we had the Paralympics. You know, when we saw these people as role models. So I felt very strongly that I didn't need to live in the shadows. I didn't need that pity. And certainly losing Western beauty standards wasn't going to stop me, feeling all those different things that they said I now wasn't. But also there was a practical and medical side where I had to go and live in France for my burn rehabilitation. You know, we have a fantastic NHS in the UK. That saved my life. You know, when it comes to acute care, life saving care, you know, having to go through private insurance would have bankrupted myself and my family. I couldn't have had that reconstruction and life saving treatment. But there is no burn rehabilitation. I was given a tub of E45 and an A4 sheet of some physio and told to be strong. Oh, so, you know, I've, I've always been somebody I've always been fascinated by people and connection and what's out there. I've always been curious and, you know, I was I was a tomboy as a little girl. And I grew up in a small rural village and moved to London at 17. You know, I was a massive reader, a massive writer, and I had this huge imagination. So I researched my recovery, and I took being a burn survivor like a job, like a form of employment. And I said, I'm going to be the best burn survivor there is. I'm going to be the best patient there is. And I found this rehab center out in France, rural France. Le Le Bon flew into Montpellier for our coach, going to the depths of nowhere to get to this rehab center. And I lived in this burn center, and I made connections, and I networked with patients, with nurses, with physios, with the CEO. And when I would come back, I'd have to come back as a witness for my legal trial and some other medical things to do with my esophagus and my stomach that had to be treated in the NHS. I would sit in those waiting rooms and I would see patients with the same injuries as me that were not getting the same results. They were inferior to my results. You would not find the cure for cancer and just not tell anybody and just sit on it and just take it for yourself. I knew these patients had to receive the same care as me, so initially I set up the Katie Piper Foundation. More like a trust, like a pot of money, so that I could use my platform to pay for other people to go to France. Well, that just grew and grew and I garnered so much support. Simon Cowell became my patron and a very good friend and all kinds of different people. We never received government funding. We were always funded by private investors and the public. And what started as just giving people grants? Fast forward now, from 2010 to present day, I set up my own rehab centre in Liverpool, in the North East, in England, and I have 20 patients. It's imperative that it's a residential facility. It can't, you know, you can't come and go. And we have 20 residential patients now as I, as I speak, and we have been able to change not just, physical outcomes and medical outcomes, we've been able to change the landscape of survivors. And, you know, the thing about Burns is it's not a sort of treatment, and you're patched up and on your way. It's forever. We need to challenge perception. We need to challenge our society, receives our survivors, and we need to help them realize their dreams. We need to help them, especially our male survivors. Many are injured at work, on oil rigs or as electricians. We need to help them retrain and realize an excellent quality of life and connect them with others and help them seek intimacy and self-worth. So it's actually a really, difficult charity to run because it's very easy to fundraise for animals and children. It's very hard to fundraise from the one thing people want to turn away from everybody's worst nightmare. Some people don't even want to discuss it because they don't want to bring it into their lives. And it's very niche, you know, it happens. It happens to very the numbers are small, but the the effect is devastating.
Katie, can I ask you obviously we're here in Switzerland and we all saw the recent devastating fire in Cromwell. Santana, with so many lives lost and lives of burns, survivors changed forever. What message of hope would you give to the Burns survivors and to their families as well?
Yeah, I woke up on New Years Day and and like everybody else, you know, scrolled through my phone full of optimism. Start of the year. And, I really had to take some time out when I saw what had happened here. Because it, I related to it so much. It's such a formative time, your teens and your 20s. And I think what it, it really enforced for me is burns do not discriminate. It doesn't matter what social or economic background you are from, there is no such thing as be more careful. I'm really safe. That won't happen to me. I. I take measures to avoid that. You absolutely can't, you know, wrong time, wrong place. It's completely unlucky. And what that tragedy demonstrated is the suddenness of all of that, that actually you meet any burn survivor and you ask them their story. And somewhere in that story will be the sentence. It was just a normal day. Every single person in this room right now would have done something today that could have led you to being burnt. If you used a hair straightener, if you made a cup of coffee, if you used a public transport today, your life could have been changed forever. It's completely unavoidable. So seeing what had happened to those young people and knowing what they were going through physically and mentally, I felt a real pull to it. And actually, I'm not a big I have a TikTok, but, you know, I'm I'm in my 40s. I'm not a big TikToker, but my my younger audience are definitely on there. And I went on there and I saw friends and family of loved ones who had been affected, writing comments of they will never recover from this, their life will never be the same. And I know that to be a true feeling in the early stages of of a trauma like this, but it is absolutely not true of life as recovery goes on. So I actually put my own video and statement out there and offered my help and support. I mean, we are we are a UK charity and we have actually found some, some UK survivors that were affected that we're now connected with and supporting. But I really wanted to give that universal message to those survivors and their family that this isn't the end temporarily. It feels very, stagnant and it feels very permanent, but it's really not. And I wanted to give hope to those people to say, there is a new life out there. You will never recreate the old you, the old life, but that's okay. And one day this will just be a distant memory in your past and you are absolutely going to be okay. And I think right now we just need to wrap our arms around these people and say, you are not alone. And we all, we all face a social responsibility of how we will receive these survivors when it's time for them to return back into society, to seek employment, to seek companionship. And that's how we can all, go through this together.
Thank you for that, Katie. And I just want to open up some questions, if there are any, from the audience here. We have time, maybe for 1 or 2, if anyone would like to ask a question. Yes.
I.
I've been living in England for like 25 years. Has there been progress on what the NHS will and won't do? And are you do you advocate for that kind of thing?
Well, not not to be negative. But you know, we've all seen sort of during and post Covid, the NHS has been very challenged. You know, I can only speak about the, the burn, the burn units, the burn world. They do do an incredible job in acute services and they do collaborate with their European counterparts and learn but I think actually with the burn injury, because it's a lifelong injury, it's actually not realistic to expect the NHS to take that patient on for life beyond that sort of life saving care. So I think actually that's why, sort of social responsibility and impact through the third sector, through charity is so important. And I think what has improved and what is positive, you know, in other sessions here, we'll hear younger people talking about social media. And actually social media has been incredibly positive for for me and my foundation because we're able to fundraise and connect in a way that we really couldn't of before 17 years ago when I was attacked. And just for me personally, it's meant that I can wake up in the morning and see a feed of people that look like me doing incredible things. They're not victims. So I think it's about, you know, connecting with different groups and different people and tapping into different funding streams and putting it out into society, that it's not just the doctors and the plastic surgeons, that are part of a burn survivors recovery, and that we need to find other ways to be robust and to be independent. And actually, they are just a small part of the initial journey that a burn survivor will go on.
We have time for maybe one last question. Unfortunately, the time has run out too quickly. Katie, if you don't mind, I'll ask you. Can you can you accept that you are an inspiration, that you are a role model for so many? You were awarded an OBE in 2022 by the UK's Princess Royal for services to charity. Are you able to accept that a lot of people do look up to you?
It's an interesting question. I just recently turned 40 and I wrote a book called Still Beautiful. And often we're often told what we are and what we're what we're not. Right? And actually, it's not who we are that holds us back in life. It's often who we think we're not that holds us back in life. And I wrote that book upon reflecting on this unusual journey of having this, this, this currency that they tell women they possess of beauty being ripped away from me. Well, when I turned 40, I started to hear, about this other currency of youth and, you know, people interviewing me saying, do you mind if we print your real age? Do you mind if we talk about this, this big birthday that you're going to have? How do you feel about turning 40? And I just thought, jeez, this is so reductive and so insulting that I fought so hard for my life. And now here is somebody again, wanting to strap shame to me for living longer. And it's actually, again, this, this very, ridiculous message of if you're not if you're not young or you don't appear young, and if you're not beautiful, you lose value and you diminish. You know, I work with quite female heavy teams through, my publishing career, through my television career. And these women are over 40, and they are extremely powerful, successful. They are role models. They are very happy. So when I wrote Still Beautiful, it was about giving that message to people saying that if you've ever felt not good enough, if if you've ever felt lacking in something, it was never you. You were never the problem. And really trying to drill into actually those that, deliver that message to you, just be very careful and just look at they're often the people selling you the solution. And I really kind of just don't buy into that. And I removed myself from that mainstream message. So I think actually not conforming and like I said, authoring my own identity and where I get my validation from has, for me been the most powerful place that I can exist in.
Owning your own space, as the book says.
Yeah.
Katie, you didn't answer. Can you accept that you are an inspiration and a role model?
If that inspires some people, then I'm very flattered. And what I want it to inspire people to do is to step out of that conformism and that narrative and to write their own story, you know? And that's where you can exist, where it doesn't rely on other people's opinions and validation.
Katie Piper, it really has been a privilege to talk to you here today at the World Economic Forum. Thank you so much for joining us, Katie Piper. And thank you to all of our audience, both here in the room and who are watching around the world. Thank you for joining us too. Thank you very much.
Katie. Yeah, that was happiness. I have so many notes.