'That's not my jaw and neck': Linda Evangelista reveals TRUTH behind latest photoshoot
Linda Evangelista, the stunning supermodel, shared her "botched" surgery experience. The 57-year-old supermodel had her CoolSculpting fat cell removal treatment go awry, so she had to tape back her face and neck for the September cover of British Vogue.
Evangelista nevertheless managed to look absolutely stunning on the cover wearing hats and headscarves despite undergoing procedures to correct the failed surgery. She appeared on the cover with a red patent leather head scarf draped around her neck with a matching bucket hat perched atop.
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Evangelista admitted to the Vogue magazine that makeup artist Pat McGrath had taped her cheeks, jaw, and neck back even though her face appeared beautiful and radiant. She said, "That's not my jaw and neck in real life – and I can't walk around with tape and elastics everywhere."
Evangelista added, "You know what, I'm trying to love myself as I am, but for the photos. Look, for photos I always think we're here to create fantasies. We're creating dreams. I think it's allowed. Also, all my insecurities are taken care of in these pictures, so I got to do what I love to do."
Even though Evangelista looked absolutely gorgeous on the Vogue cover, she admitted that she is not completely at ease. "Am I cured mentally? Absolutely not. But I'm so grateful for the support I got from my friends and from my industry," she said.
"You're not going to see me in a swimsuit, that's for sure," Evangelista continued. "It's going to be difficult to find jobs with things protruding from me; without retouching, or squeezing into things, or taping things or compressing or tricking..." In a message posted on Instagram in September 2021, Linda said she had a Zeltiq CoolSculpting surgery and was "brutally disfigured" as a result.
"It did the opposite of what it promised," Evangelista wrote. "It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful corrective surgeries. I have been left, as the media described, 'unrecognizable.'"
Evangelista told Vogue that she felt driven to seek treatment for the botched surgeries by the cosmetic surgery advertisements, stating, "Those CoolSculpting commercials were on all the time, on CNN, on MSNBC, over and over, and they would ask, 'Do you like what you see in the mirror?' They were speaking to me."
"It was about stubborn fat in areas that wouldn't budge," Evangelista said. "It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I'm a little vain. So I went for it – and it backfired." She acknowledged that she regretted having the procedure done, saying, "If I had known side effects may include losing your livelihood and you'll end up so depressed that you hate yourself... I wouldn't have taken that risk."
On July 20, Evangelista revealed via an Instagram post that she had made peace with her CoolSculpting surgery. She wrote, "I look forward to the next chapter of my life with friends and family, and am happy to put this matter behind."