the former supermodel Linda Evangelista opened up about the mental health cost of the cosmetic procedure that left her disfigured, telling British Vogue that she battled depression and even stopped eating.
Linda, 57, also revealed that she was influenced by repeated TV commercials, saying that she would have refused the fat-freezing treatment had she known that “side effects can include losing your livelihood and (ending up) so depressed you come to hate it.” yourself.”
Evangelista’s comments come a year after she filed a $50 million lawsuit against the American company. Zeltiq Aesthetics for her CoolSculpting body contouring procedure, which she said left her “brutally disfigured”.
The Canadian model claimed she was not told of a rare side effect called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which causes swelling and thickening of fatty tissue.
In July, she announced that she had settled the lawsuit, but did not reveal the terms of the settlement.
The model was unveiled as the star of the upcoming September issue of British Vogue on Thursday, marking her first appearance on the cover of the UK edition in nearly 24 years.
The essay features a series of glowing photos of Evangelista, who was rarely seen in public during five years spent “in hiding” in New York.
“Am I mentally healed? Absolutely not,” she said, later adding, “I’m trying to love myself as I am.”
“I was losing my mind”
In an extensive interview, Evangelista spoke about several attempts he’s made to reverse the damage, including undergoing two liposuction treatments and wearing compression garments. “I had my entire body tightly girded for eight weeks – nothing helped,” she said.
The model also revealed that she was so depressed and “embarrassed” that she stopped eating altogether.
“I had just spent all this money and the only way I could think of to fix it was zero calories, so I just drank water. Or sometimes I would eat a stick of celery or an apple,” she said, adding, “I was losing my mind.”
A mainstay of 1980s and 1990s fashion alongside fellow supermodels Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington Evangelista said she was persuaded to undergo body contouring through advertisements.
“Those CoolSculpting commercials ran all the time, on CNN, MSNBC, over and over, and they asked, ‘Do you like what you see in the mirror?’ They were talking to me. It was about stubborn fat in areas that wouldn’t budge. It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I’m a little conceited. So I went for it – and it backfired.”
Zeltiq Aesthetics’ parent company Allergan Aesthetics did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
But a representative for Zeltiq told Vogue in a statement that the company is “pleased to have resolved this matter with Ms. Evangelista,” adding, “Our focus remains on building trust by providing safe and reliable aesthetic products and services backed by science. CoolSculpting is an FDA-approved, non-invasive treatment for visible fat lumps in nine areas of the body.”
Gradual return to the spotlight
After years of not working as a model, Linda Evangelista participated in a prominent campaign with Italian brand Fendi in July. But the model admitted that it will be “hard to find jobs with things coming out of me; without touching up, or squeezing, or gluing, compressing or deceiving”.
“You won’t see me in a bathing suit, that’s for sure,” she said. For the newly published Vogue photos, in which Evangelista appears mostly covered up, celebrity makeup artist Pat McGrath “gently draws the face, jaw and neck back with tape and rubber bands,” the magazine wrote.
British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful welcomed the Evangelist’s return to the spotlight.
“There was a time in fashion when no matter how successful you were, you were thrown in the trash as soon as your expiration date was up,” he wrote in the editor’s note, adding that the supermodel generation is still ” loved” by the magazine’s readers.
“I can’t stand it and many others can’t either. So, for many reasons, I felt Linda’s absence deeply.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the model told about her trip to Japan in the early 1980s at age 16, where an agency pressured her to take her clothes off.
“They wanted me naked and it wasn’t a ‘would you do nudes?’ it was a ‘will you do nudes,’” she recalled. “I went out and called my mom and she said, ‘Leave now and go to the embassy.’ So that’s what I did, and they took me home.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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