Linda Evangelista doesn’t blame herself for a plastic surgery incident
Linda Evangelista attends the Kering Foundation’s second annual Caring For Women Dinner on September 12, 2023 in New York City.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for KeringLinda Evangelista talks about the cosmetic surgery incident that she said left her “permanently disfigured” and “brutally disfigured.”
“What people think about me still bothers me a little bit, but it used to bother me a lot,” Evangelista, 58, told The Sunday times in an interview published on Sunday, November 26. “I now know that I did nothing wrong. For a long time I thought so.”
She continued: “I’m not completely over it yet, but I’m working hard to get rid of the guilt and shame. And I won’t let it ruin my life. I wouldn’t have stayed locked up if I had known how much people cared.”
The model revealed via Instagram in September 2021 that she underwent the CoolSculpting procedure, designed to ‘reduce’ her fat cells. Instead, the cosmetic procedure is said to have ‘enlarged’ it and left her ‘permanently disfigured’ even after two ‘failed corrective surgeries’.
Evangelista, who rose to supermodel stardom with her Cindy Crawford And Christy Turlingtonalso said on Sunday that she doesn’t look in the mirror.
“My son sometimes says to me: ‘You might want to know that you have a pimple on your chin.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ But life is better without mirrors,” she said.
Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista perform on stage during Vogue World: London at Theater Royal Drury Lane on September 14, 2023.
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for VogueEvangelista, a two-time breast cancer survivor, noted that her biggest goal is to “stay alive.” (She was diagnosed in both December 2018 and July 2020.)
“When I hear other people’s stories, I think, ‘Oh God, I have no right to complain,’” she told the outlet.
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Evangelista previously revealed in September 2021 that she developed a rare side effect called Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia (PAH). She noted that she was left, “as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable’.”
“PAH has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has put me in a cycle of deep depression, deep sadness and the deepest depths of self-loathing,” Evangelista wrote via Instagram at the time. “In the meantime I have become a hermit.”
Evangelista sued Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc. for $50 million in damages. The lawsuit was settled in July 2022 for an undisclosed amount.
“I’m glad I settled the CoolSculpting case,” she wrote in a post Instagram statement after the agreement. “I look forward to the next chapter of my life with friends and family, and am happy to put this matter behind me. I am truly grateful for the support I have received from those who have reached out.”