Having done hiding, the supermodel vows that she will ‘continue sharing my experience to rid myself of shame, learn to love myself again, and hopefully help others in the process.’
AceShowbiz –Linda Evangelista is done hiding. Months after opening up about a botched cosmetic procedure that has left “brutally disfigured,” the supermodel is showing her body for the first time as she shares more insight into her life with the emotional and physical pain caused by a procedure called CoolSculpting.
CoolSculpting is a popular, FDA-cleared “fat-freezing” procedure that’s been promoted as a noninvasive alternative to liposuction. Unfortunately, in Linda’s case, the procedure “did the opposite of what it promised” after she went under the knife in 2015.
“I loved being up on the catwalk. Now I dread running into someone I know,” the 56-year-old star tearfully tells PEOPLE in an interview for this week’s cover story. “I can’t live like this anymore, in hiding and shame. I just couldn’t live in this pain any longer. I’m willing to finally speak.”
Linda started noticing bulges at her chin, thighs and bra area within three months after the treatments. “I tried to fix it myself, thinking I was doing something wrong,” she spills, adding that she began dieting and exercising more.
Finally, in June 2016 she went to her doctor and was diagnosed with Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH). PAH is a rare side effect that affects less than 1 percent of CoolSculpting patients, where the freezing process causes the affected fatty tissue to thicken and expand.
CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., offered to pay for liposuction with a surgeon of the company’s choosing to fix the PAH damage, only if she signed a confidentiality agreement, which she refused. She had the first of two full-body liposuction surgeries, which she paid for, in June 2016.
Following the surgery, Linda had to wear compression garments, girdles and a chin strap for eight weeks. But the PAH came back, even after a second liposuction in July 2017.
“It wasn’t even a little bit better,” she says of the results of the liposuction surgeries. “The bulges are protrusions. And they’re hard. If I walk without a girdle in a dress, I will have chafing to the point of almost bleeding. Because it’s not like soft fat rubbing, it’s like hard fat rubbing.”
She says her posture has also been affected because she can no longer “put my arms flat along my side.” She says, “I don’t think designers are going to want to dress me with that sticking out of my body,” while pulling down her shirt and shows the rectangular shape of PAH protruding from under her arm.
“I don’t look in the mirror,” she shares. “It doesn’t look like me.” She goes on lamenting, “I don’t recognize myself physically, but I don’t recognize me as a person any longer either. She [the supermodel Linda Evangelista] is sort of gone.”
Of why she is opening up about her experience with the procedure now, Linda says, “I hope I can shed myself of some of the shame and help other people who are in the same situation as me. That’s my goal.”
After the interview was published, Linda posted her photo from the magazine on her Instagram page as she vowed, “I’m not done telling my story, and I will continue sharing my experience to rid myself of shame, learn to love myself again, and hopefully help others in the process.”
Linda filed a lawsuit in September 2021 against Zeltiq, asking for $50 million in damages. In the suit, she alleges that she’s been unable to work since undergoing seven sessions of CoolSculpting in a dermatologist’s office from August 2015 to February 2016.
“PAH has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing. In the process, I have become a recluse,” she said at the time. She added, “I am so tired of living this way. I would like to walk out my door with my head high, despite not looking like myself any longer.”
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