Remember that whole ‘free swimsuit’ viral mess? Here’s what actually happened

Even though it feels like a lifetime ago, it was only May when a picture of a girl in a red swimsuit sitting photogenically by a pool totally dominated Basic Bitch Instagram for a few crazy days. You know the one.

I'll admit it: I fell for it, and shared the picture for the promise of a free swimsuit — a $64.99 value! — from Sunny Co Clothing. We all did, which was the problem.

Most of us soiled our brands for nothing — the company quickly issued apologies after the post blew up, stating in follow-up Instagram posts that not everybody would snag a suit due to the "viral volume of participants."

And that's where I thought things ended, with deleted reposts and a few memes mocking the entire situation. But in reality, a select few people did end up with a Pamela Sunny Suit for just the cost of shipping, and babe spoke to one of them — Leah, who doesn't even think the suit was worth the wait, or the $12 she spent on shipping.

"I was miserable wearing it on the beach for even an hour," Leah told babe. "All the pictures girls get, including myself, had to be perfectly posed and upright or a nipple will pop out at any moment."

According to Leah, she didn't even do anything special to get the suit. She initially reposted the picture on a fake Instagram account — "I have too much pride to share it on my own" — after she saw a college acquaintance share it. Then she happened to see that Sunny Co updated their original post with a discount code, which she used to actually snag a suit. She doesn't think the clothing company even checked to see who reposted the picture.

"They made it seem like you had to share it, like you’d get some code DMed to you or something like that, but really they just updated the post at the end of the day to include the code to use in the caption," she said.

Then she waited a few months until the suit finally arrived. But when it did, she was totally disappointed. "Honestly the quality of the fabric is better than I expected," she said. "I truly thought it would fall apart the second it hit water." But she said the suit itself is uncomfortable and way too revealing. "The actual design of the suit sucks. Since there’s nothing really holding it down between the bottom and top on front, if you slouch even a little it pretty much all comes out."

So I guess the fact that none of us actually got our hands on one of these one-pieces is low-key a blessing in disguise or something? At least, that's how I'm gonna think about it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna check the tracking number on a "free" necklace I ordered from China that should be here any… day… now.

@k80way