Did you ever just do what you had to and then found yourself in the middle of a firestorm? That’s what happened to Lindsey Graham, better known as “Patriot Barbie,” six weeks into the COVID lockdown of 2020.

A serial entrepreneur, Lindsey and her husband owned six brick-and-mortar service businesses. Think hair salons, tanning salons, and gyms. The power couple was a pinnacle of their community, at the peak of their careers, and even talking about retiring early.

Then the pandemic hit. Everything shut down. “Two weeks to stop the spread” turned into an unforeseeable end. Lindsey and her husband were facing bankruptcy as the lockdown dragged on.

“We were doing the math, and I was like, dude, we are going to go bankrupt.”

Knowing that she could face a backlash from local authorities, Lindsey decided to reopen her hair salon. What she didn’t expect was the global media coverage and attention she soon received.

“Some people did not like that I was reopening and called me a murderer and a racist and all kinds of other crazy things, and then the other side said, ‘You’re a hero, you’re brave,'” she said. “All I’m doing, to be honest, is hair.”

Oregon officials threatened Lindsey with $50,000 per day fines, jail time, and the removal of their three children, including their infant son, from the family home.

Nasty memes and threats to her family and employees soon followed. Lindsey and her husband became outcasts and targets.

It took five months for “cancel culture” to destroy all six of the businesses Lindsey and her husband had built. Moreso, Lindsey was fearful she could be killed by an enraged activist.

“I didn’t know any of that was going to happen, or perhaps I wouldn’t have done it,” she said.  

But something else was happening behind the scenes in the early days of the media conflagration. Someone attempted to insult Lindsey by calling her “Patriot Barbie.” Not seeing it as an insult, Lindsey adopted the name with pride. Her alter ego was born, and she quickly became an icon among political and religious conservatives.

Unsure of the next step, she and her husband moved out of Oregon that September to start over doing something different. After listening to the whisper in her ear, she began writing her testimony.

“I have a beautiful testimony, a beautiful and sad testimony, and I wasn’t sharing that in Oregon,” she said.

Now a Texas-based conservative activist, speaker, “faith-fueled Christian, and a freedom-fighting mama bear,” Lindsey has launched a new clothing line called Pretty Little Patriot, which she says is a way to minister to women.

“All of the merch is either patriotic or Jesus,” she said. “People are so blown away at how bold my brand is in Jesus, and so it’s attracting people.”

Lindsey says cancel culture ruined her life, but only because “that was not the life God would have for me.” She found her voice amid an attempt to silence it. Speaking her truth is how she is getting chiseled.

Tune in to this week’s Chiseled to hear how Lindsey managed to find her true purpose in one of the darkest periods in modern history.