At more than 6 feet tall, Peet Montzingo is slightly above average height, but in a family of little people he sticks out. Literally.
“Peet as a little boy would say to me, ‘Mom, I wish I was a dwarf,’” Vicki Montzingo tells TODAY.com. “He fit society’s idea of what a person should look like, but at home, he felt like the odd man out."
Peet remembers feeling guilty for being able to blend into a crowd, when his parents, Vicki and Darrell, and siblings, Jennifer and Andrew, were gawked at, harassed and photographed by strangers.
“I hated it,” Peet says. “I was always ready to fight someone.”
Peet says he had a strained relationship with his older brother, Andrew, when they were growing up. Andrew, who has a rare form of dwarfism, was in and out of the hospital for spine surgeries and breathing issues. Peet says he felt envious of the attention Andrew received.
"I'd be like, 'Well, why did he get a teddy bear and not me?'" Peet says.
At the same time, Peet wondered if Andrew resented him for his height — and good health.
"There was some jealousy because I love sports,” Andrew says. “We played little league together and he’d be the kid out in the left field picking daisies, and not competing. And I’m like, ‘Peet, you have the perfect build and you’re not even putting it to good use. Switch bodies with me.’”
Andrew acknowledges that Peet had challenges, too. For example, at amusement parks, the Montzingos were restricted to rides without height restraints and Peet felt bad going alone. Peet was also especially sensitive about how the world treated his family.
“I definitely sensed anger and sadness from him when we were younger,” Andrew says. “The pointing, the stares and the name calling — the name calling really got to him.”
Andrew is now a third-grade teacher in South Carolina, while Peet is a Los Angeles-based content creator with more than 12.7 million followers on TikTok, where he often advocates for little people. The videos where Peet teams up with his mom, Vicki, are especially popular.
Peet gives tours of Vicki’s house, which is filled with furniture made for little people. Peet — again he’s 6 feet tall — often jokes that he’s a “real life Buddy the Elf.”
“I feel like I’ve finally found my place in the world,” Peet says. “I’m educating people about differences. I get so many messages that are like, ‘You’ve changed my perspective,’ ’Thank you for opening my eyes.’”
In 2022, Peet published a children’s book called “Little Imperfections: A Tall Tale of Growing Up Different.”
Vicki says that she could not be prouder of her son. She loves filming with him, and has been overwhelmed by the positive responses their videos receive.
“His videos are informative, educational and funny at the same time. He’s normalizing different bodies,” Vicki tells TODAY.com. “We may look different, and we may move differently, but inside we’re all the same.”
Related video: