A Marilyn Monroe impersonator sick of potential dates making lewd comments and asking for sexy pictures says she doesn’t dress up to ‘fulfil a fantasy’.
Talented Isabella Bliss, 36, is a burlesque dancer, comic, singer and writer alongside her role as the iconic sex symbol.
But she says most suitors can’t look past her blonde bombshell looks – which has made it hard to find a partner.
Isabella says some men make crude jokes while others think she’ll likely be self-obsessed and a narcissist due to the perception of Monroe’s personality.
Unmarried and without children, Isabella, from Basildon, Essex, blames her love life struggles on her job.
But she says she loves what she does – and she has never wanted to have to give it up for anyone.
Isabella said: “I clearly state on dating apps that I know I look a bit like Marilyn Monroe – it’s my job. But nine out of 10 times they get inappropriate.
“Some people are confused and don’t understand how I get paid for it. Sometimes they want to go on date to see if I do look like Marilyn.
“But I still haven’t given up on idea of meeting the love of my life and having my happy ever after.”
Isabella first started performing as a burlesque dancer at 20.
People quickly started commenting on her resemblance to Monroe, who is still widely held as one of the great sex symbols.
An actress, model and singer, Monroe died in 1962.
Isabella first performed as Monroe in 2013 at her friend’s birthday as a joke.
But her performances escalated from there – and she made a name for herself as the ‘Marilyn Monroe of burlesque’.
In 2017 she wrote a one-woman show dedicated to the icon, and next year will be touring the show as a full theatre production.
But Isabella says she feels like she has to make a choice between the career she loves and finding the man of her dreams.
And she says she worries the opportunity to meet the right man and start a family is beginning to fade away.
Isabella said: “Marilyn herself just wanted to find her person and be loved and feel loved but who she was made it so difficult for her.
“I’m another year older and another year closer to making a choice – do I choose to pursue my dream, tour my show and enjoy the career I love so much?
“When in the background I’m watching that opportunity to meet right person, have kids and get married start to disappear.”
Isabella says she’s had all manner of crude comments – with one man bizarrely asking if she’d slept with the late US president John F Kennedy.
The real Monroe is alleged to have had an affair with Kennedy.
Isabella said: “Someone messaged on my Instagram and asked what John F Kennedy was like in bed. They see me as a thing and not a person.”
“Men think I’ll be really smutty or sleazy or that it’s ok to talk to me about my body – they ask for selfies all dressed up or in lingerie. It’s like I’m there to fulfil their fantasy.
“They think because I just look like her, they don’t realise I sing her songs, write comedy and scripts, have my one-woman show, they think I just look like her and take pictures like her.
“Dating apps are a minefield as it is, men are wildly inappropriate, now imaging compounding that with looking like a Hollywood sex icon.
“I’m lucky to work a job I love and I’ve never wanted to have to give it up for somebody.
“If I was to give it all up to get married and have children I’d want it to be my fairytale.”
