- Drafting
- BBC News World
“I used to love being on the catwalk. Now I’m afraid of running into someone I know.”
This is how supermodel Linda Evangelista says she feels regarding the negative results she suffers from a cosmetic treatment that had a rare adverse effect on her body.
The 56-year-old Canadian posed for the first time for a magazine cover, Peopleand recounted the personal trauma caused by the coolsculpting for reduce body fat which he underwent at the end of 2015.
But now she’s a little better, she explains in the post: “I can’t live like this anymore, hiding and ashamed. I just mightn’t live with this pain any longer. I’m willing to talk.”
In September 2021, Evangelista explained through Instagram that she had withdrawn from public life due to the treatment that left her “permanently deformed”.
The cryolipolysis treatment increased, rather than decreased, her fat cells, a rare side effect.
That and two failed corrective surgeries caused “a cycle of great depression,” he explained a few months ago.
But now he’s looking for a way “love each other once more”.
“What the hell is this?”
on the cover of Peoplethe famous model appears in a low angle, with sweaters that cover her torso and a serious face that looks at the camera.
But on the inside pages, she poses in a T-shirt that reveals the side of her torso and the effects the paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH)the medical term for this problem.
The disease manifests itself with bumps that harden and that make the body lose sensitivity.
Evangelista explains that at first she thought she was doing “something wrong” by not seeing the results she expected in her chin, thighs, and chest area.
So he doubled down on the diet to the point of “not eating anything.”
Seeing no results, a doctor diagnosed her with PAH, an adverse effect that it affects a less than 1% of those who undergo cryolipolysis and that there is no cure.
“I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ They told me that no amount of diet and exercise was ever going to fix it.”
That happened between 2015 and 2016.
“I mightn’t put on a dress without wearing a girdle, because it would cause chafing to the point of bleeding. Because it’s not like soft fat that rubs once morest you, it’s hard fat,” she tells People.
“I don’t think designers want to dress me like that,” she says as she shows off her sequels. For her, the supermodel Linda Evangelista no longer exists.
take off the shame
Time has given Evangelista serenity and now he considers that opening up to the public is a way to overcome the problem.
I will continue to share my experience to take away my shame, to learn to love myself once more and being able to help others in the process,” he says.
However, he acknowledges that it is a process that takes time. “I don’t look at myself in the mirror. It’s not me,” she confesses.
Now the “need” of many people to modify their bodies is questioned: “I always knew I was going to age. And I know there are things a body goes through, but I never thought I would look like this.”
On the other hand, the former supermodel is in a legal battle with Zeltiq, the beauty firm that carried out the procedure, arguing that neither the “aggressive” publicity regarding coolsculpting nor did their website mention the risks of PAH until recently.
The firm has declined to comment on the case as it is in the midst of litigation.
The model asks for US$50 million in compensation.