BeautifulPeople.com culls less-than-perfect lookers

More than 3,000 members of the website have had their profiles removed

An elitist dating website which claims to cater for only the world’s best-looking singletons has carried out a ruthless cull of thousands of members deemed to have fallen short of its “rigorous standards”.

The firm, BeautifulPeople.com, said the step was necessary in order to maintain both its “beautiful community” of the waxed, tanned and buffed and its “prized business model”.

More than 3,000 members of the website have had their profiles removed, with the axe falling hardest on Britons.

More than 500 were judged to have fallen foul of the “high standard of beauty” the site strives to uphold.

Since launching in 2003, the dating site has built up a membership of more than 800,000 people from 190 countries.

They are admitted as part of a merciless process where existing members rate the photographs and profiles submitted by new applicants.

The voting options consist of four categories: “Yes, definitely”; “Hmm, yes, OK”; “Hmm, no, not really”; and finally, the damning response of “No, definitely not”.

But initial acceptance into this beautiful club does not guarantee lifetime membership. The site’s US-based managing partners, Greig and Genevieve Hodge, order periodic reviews of the suitability of those looking for love in their “exclusive  community”.

The couple said the latest cull has sent a “very clear message” to its good looking members: “You don’t just need to be beautiful to join; you need to stay that way, or you are out.”

While critics describe it as “egotistical, arrogant and driven by narcissism,” some of its members have supported the idea of rooting out the less than perfect.

Tawnie Lynn, from Los Angeles, said she was rejected the first time she tried to join, so she had cosmetic surgery. She then used a new photo and was accepted.

She said: “If the management failed to maintain the quality of the site by polluting the gene pool, most members would leave. It would make Beautiful People just like every other dating site – full of the kind of people you wouldn’t want to share an elevator with, let alone date.”

Mr Hodge said: “If members fail to maintain their beautiful appearance, we take the most recent photos of them and put them back in the rating system.

“If their looks aren’t up to our members’ exacting standards and they do not secure a majority of positive votes, then their profiles are immediately removed. We take no pleasure in removing members, but it is a necessary evil in order to maintain the beautiful community and our business model.”