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Linda Evangelista gets candid about the cosmetic procedure that left her 'disfigured', says 'I'm done hiding'
Canadian supermodel Linda Evangelista speaks candidly about her fat-freezing nightmare in a new interview.
Linda Evangelista, formerly one of the world's most photographed individuals, has been living in isolation for over five years. However, she's finally ready to tell her story.
Evangelista, 56, discusses the mental and physical suffering that has plagued her life in recent years, after she claims CoolSculpting — a popular, FDA-approved "fat-freezing" technique marketed as a noninvasive alternative to liposuction — left her "permanently deformed" and "brutally disfigured." Evangelista sued CoolSculpting's parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., for USD 50 million in damages in September, stating that she has been unable to work after receiving seven CoolSculpting treatments in a dermatologist's clinic from August 2015 to February 2016.
Within three months of completing her treatments, Evangelista began to notice bulges around her chin, thighs, and bra region. The exact regions she'd hoped to reduce in size were now expanding. As well as hardness. Then they became numb. "I tried to fix it myself, thinking I was doing something wrong," says Evangelista, as per PEOPLE and she began dieting and exercising more. "I got to where I wasn't eating at all. I thought I was losing my mind." However, Linda later got to know she is going through PAH which 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.
"I don't look in the mirror," she adds. "It doesn't look like me." Meanwhile, she is hopeful that expressing her pain would bring consolation to others in similar situations. She said, "I can't live like this anymore, in hiding and shame. I just couldn't live in this pain any longer." And while Evangelista fights daily to regain what she's lost, she knows one thing for sure: "I'm not going to hide anymore."
