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Linda Evangelista is “done hiding.”
The legendary supermodel is opening up about her emotional and physical journey, after undergoing a cosmetic procedure that left her “permanently deformed.”
“I loved being up on the catwalk,” she shared, “Now I dread running into someone I know. 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.”
Evangelista shared the first photos since the procedure in a new interview with People, sharing the difficult situation she is currently facing, filing a lawsuit for $50 million in damages and declaring she has been unable to work after undergoing seven CoolSculpting sessions from August 2015 to February 2016.
The model was shocked after the treatment, when she noticed bulges on different parts of her body. “I tried to fix it myself, thinking I was doing something wrong,” she confessed, “I got to where I wasn’t eating at all. I thought I was losing my mind.”
She was later diagnosed with paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), which is described as “a rare side effect that affects less than 1% of CoolSculpting patients, where the freezing process causes the affected fatty tissue to thicken and expand.”
And while the company contacted her to pay for liposuction to correct the damage, she declined the offer when she realized that she would have to sign a confidentiality agreement. The model refused and paid for two liposuction surgeries in June 2016.
“It wasn’t even a little bit better,” she admits, “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.”
“I always knew I would age. And I know that there are things a body goes through. But I just didn’t think I would look like this. I don’t recognize myself physically, but I don’t recognize me as a person any longer either. She is sort of gone.” Evangelista shared to People, hoping that by sharing her experience she can provide comfort to patients who have experienced the same.