Meet the 19th century Kim Kardashian.

This is a true life story according to Dailymail UK. In the 19th century, Sarah 'Saartjie' Baartman came from a herding community of the indigenous Khoisan people in what is now known as the Eastern Cape, the remote, rural part of South Africa.

Born around 1790, Baartman's home area was then being ravaged by a series of wars and skirmishes, sometimes within the local African tribes, on other occasions involving white adventurers pushing out from Cape Town.

Baartman's future husband and her father were both killed in a commando raid that left her homeless. She was shipped to Britain in 1810 and paraded as a freakshow display to entertain awestruck audiences.

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Dubbed the 'Hottentot Venus', her first appearance was on stage in St James, London's clubland, and was well-attended, entrance was charged at 2 shillings, then a considerable sum.

The audience was there for only one main reason and the promoters did not let them down on, forcing Baartman to wear a figure-hugging, skin-tight outfit that accentuated all her curves. She was paraded as the opposite of what a 'normal' white female is.

She was sold in 1814 to a Frenchman who showed her off to audiences on the other side of the Channel. There were rumours of alcoholism and syphilis before she died in December 1815.

Even in death the exploitation continued with a surgeon removing and preserving her genitals while artists sketched her extensively. Her genitals remained on display in Paris until the 1970s along with her skeleton.

It was only in 2002, after a personal appeal by Nelson Mandela, who also hailed from the Eastern Cape, that her mortal remains made it home to South Africa for official burial. By that time Baartman was an icon for racial and sexist exploitation.