A professional basketballer and Olympian who was raised in Australia by her white mother has revealed she hid her African roots.
Liz Cambage, who is half Nigerian, said she was ashamed to have darker skin as a teenager growing up in Melbourne.
'I was raised by mum who's white and she raised me amazingly, but I was never in touch with my black side growing up in a very white-washed Australia,' she told The Weekly on the ABC.
Scroll down for video
A professional basketballer and Olympian who was raised in Australia by her white mother has revealed she hid her African roots
The 27-year-old athlete, who played for the Opals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, said she was so insecure about her African heritage she tried to look like the blonde women she saw on Australian television.
'I would straighten and dye my hair. I'd wear blue contacts to school,' she told comedian Charlie Pickering.
'I got to a point when I was 16 and I realised this isn't me and this isn't who I am and I just cut that all out. I really owned myself and who I was.'
Cambage, who played in the American Women's National Basketball Association with the Dallas Wings, said didn't appreciate ethnic diversity until she moved to the United States.
'It's such a diverse country and everyone's put on show there,' she said.
'And here in Australia we market ourselves as a multicultural country but we never see that on TV.'
Liz Cambage, who is half Nigerian, said she was ashamed to have darker skin as a teenager growing up in Melbourne
Cambage, who played in the American Women's National Basketball Association with the Dallas Wings, said didn't
