A woman was completely shocked when her Uber driver left her with an unsolicited tip on how to treat her stunning skin.

Embracing her striking beauty, the fashion icon, also known as the “Queen of the Dark,” fired back with laughter and shrugged off his comments.

Keep reading to learn what this Uber driver told her and how she turned it into a teachable moment!

After spending her earlier years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, Nyakim Gatwech thought living in America would “be like heaven.”

But when she landed in Buffalo at about 14 years old, Gatwech spent a lot of time alone, crying over the judgements of her deeply pigmented skin.

The Minnesota-based model, a native of South Sudan, spent years being bullied for her glowing dark skin, and told things like, “You don’t take showers. That’s why your skin is dirt.” Or, “Smile so we can see you, Nyakim. We can’t see you.”

“In class, for example, the teacher would ask a question and say, ‘“’Oh, Nyakim, can you answer that?’ A kid would say, ‘Who are you talking to? We can’t see her. She’s not here.’ The whole class would start laughing, and I would just cry,” the now 31-year-old woman tells Cosmopolitan.

The young, impressionable girl only wanted to fit in, but it wasn’t easy when random men were making bets on if she was wearing leggings, or if her skin was really that dark.

“At one point, I did consider [bleaching my skin]. When I came to America from a refugee camp in Africa [at age 14], I lived in Buffalo, New York. I would cry myself to sleep after being bullied [about my skin],” says the beauty. “There are so many beautiful dark-skinned Sudanese women who bleach their skin.”

The model then revealed that her own sister is one of those Sudanese women who bleached her skin. “My own sister did it. But when I told her I wanted to [after living in America for a few months], she told me no. I’m not going to let my daughter do it, or you, nobody.’”

Queen of the Dark

Now called Queen of the Dark, the woman – who’s been discriminated against by designers, makeup artists, and also fellow models – feels empowered by pushing through the negativity.

And Gatwech’s confidence and amazing love for her deep chocolatey skin is bolstered by her 962,000 loyal followers on Instagram.

“My chocolate is elegant. So is what I represent…A nation of warriors,” she writes in one post.

And fans can’t seem to get enough of the strikingly beautiful woman.