Washington – Former supermodel Linda Evangelista says she has been
permanently disfigured by a fat-reduction cosmetic procedure that backfired
and caused her to look bloated and unrecognizable.
Evangelista, 56, said she underwent “CoolSculpting” five years ago and
that it had the rare side effect of causing her fat cells to increase
rather than decrease.
Evangelista, a 1990s modeling icon from Canada who starred on catwalks
with colleagues like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, said in an
Instagram post Wednesday that she was never warned of the procedure’s risks
and is now filing a lawsuit.
She said her current appearance — the result of a condition called
paradoxical adipose hyperplasia — explained her absence from the public
spotlight in recent years.
“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my
peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally
disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of
what it promised,” Evangelista wrote.
“It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently
deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful, corrective
surgeries. I have been left, as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable,'”
she added.
The cosmetic sculpting procedure is supposed to freeze and kill the
cells in fat deposits so that the body can eliminate them.
Evangelista said the botched job has turned her into a depressed recluse
ridden with self-loathing, her livelihood destroyed.
“I am moving forward to rid myself of my shame, and going public with my
story,” Evangelista wrote.
“I’m so tired of living this way. I would like to walk out my door with
my head held high, despite not looking like myself any longer.”(AFP)
