It’s official. A Ketchikan woman now holds the Guinness World Record for “largest female mouth gape.” That’s how wide you can open your mouth vertically. Guinness World Records announced Marie Pearl Zellmer Robinson as the new record holder on April 9. In an accompanying video, Robinson narrates as she fits a cheeseburger stacked ten patties high between her teeth.
A Ketchikan dentist measured her open jaw at over three inches wide. The measurements varied but Guinness reported an average of 7.28 centimeters. Robinson said she was able to get up to 7.62 centimeters and may still be widening.
“I’m pretty sure I can beat my own record in the future as well,” Robinson said in her Guinness World Records video.
She shattered the 6.52 centimeter record previously held by Samantha Ramsdell, a Connecticut woman.
“Holding a record for something is like making a fact that the whole world can learn from. And people can look at that and think “that’s something that really exists,” she said.
Robinson and her husband co-founded a local delivery service called Ketch-A-Courier. She told KRBD in an interview prior to setting the record that she was inspired to reach for fame by an earlier Ketchikan record – when nearly 2,000 Ketchikan residents donned rainboots a little over a decade ago and broke the world record for “largest rainboot race.”
“Every time I see somebody do something amazing, I’m like, ‘Well, I can’t do that,’” she said. “But this one was one that I could do, and I surprised myself even.”
Robinson said if anyone thinks they can beat her world-class jaw, she welcomes the challenge.
