I haven’t written about Lil Kim in about two years. The last time I wrote about her was June 2014, just after she gave birth a baby girl she named Royal Reign. That pregnancy – her first – came at the tailend of several years where Lil Kim seemed out of sorts, and she seemed to be getting a ton of plastic surgery. When she came out to the VMAs in 2013, hardly anyone recognized her. And in the past two years, it seems to have gotten worse.
These are some assorted photos from April 2 and photos from her Instagram from the past few weeks. I think it’s taken nearly the whole month for people to realize that this is Lil Kim and this is how she looks these days. People are (understandably) freaking out about it. The thing is, structurally, her face looks sort of better? Like, she doesn’t look as plastic as she looked circa 2013. But she’s definitely done something to her skin. And yes, she has an entirely new face.
Also… the eyebrows, you guys. I just noticed them. They are EXQUISITE.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.
I… I … Just don’t understand.. my mind can’t process how she ended up here in her face… what the EFF is this gonna do to her daughter to grow up with this utter Alien F*ckery???
I know right sending a terrible message to her baby girl.
I feel like people really need to be kind and understanding about her. You don’t end up with this kind of plastic surgery if you’re emotionally healthy, and the ridicule/comments about her can’t be helping.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been listening to Lemonade this morning, but this seems, to me, a direct result of the arbitrary beauty standards our society imposes on woc. She needs to be built up, not torn down for being brainwashed and beaten down.
Well said Samtha. I fully admit, I too make fun of people who get, what seems to be insane amounts of plastic surgery, but we all need to remember that she is still a person with feelings like the rest of us. Instead of pointing an laughing, we should be asking “what can we do to help her and her young daughter?” & “what have we done as a society to encourage this type of behavior?”
I agree but the first thing someone needs to do is ensure the well-being of her daughter. That is deep self-loathing and possible body dysmorphic disorder we are seeing there. Her daughter’s father is African American, her daughter is African American. I genuinely fear for what she might face from her mother’s issues.
Oh Samtha Im not even popping off jokes I’m bereft for her face and her mental stability and the fact that she is raising a Brown Baby in this
Absolutely. People forget she got so much verbal and physical abuse from the men in life, from Biggie as well.
is it mental instability OR is it a trend towards what some consider a new beauty? Think of all the insane things humans have done to their bodies in the name of beauty for their time and culture. In the past, very pale skin was considered “rich” and tanner, sunned skin was considered “poor”. Perhaps being able to adjust your face THIS much is considered some new rich person’s beauty. There are circles rich women that have had so much done to their faces that they don’t see themselves as “cat-faced” as the people they surround themselves with have the same faces. It makes me wonder what we will consider beautiful in 100 years.
Self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect don’t kick in until you force them to. She clearly doesn’t have much of a “self” left, although it takes big balls to walk outside like that especially when your famous, but lots of other women of color feel the exact opposite and work to assert that sentiment. Until she can hear the lie on everyone’s lips and still listen to the truth she’s not going to believe she’s good enough, even with surgery. I think a kind therapist who actually knows what they’re talking about could help her open her mind back up, then she can rebuild from there. But no one can live your life for you. She has to see it herself to understand.
@Samtha: Thank you for this comment! Very much needed. We are often so quick to judge and ridicule.
BRE: That’s an excellent point. Body and/or facial modification has been used throughout history in many cultures to show the high status of certain members. Perhaps this is the modern version of that. Plastic surgery is very expensive, and the wealthy have always entertained themselves and flaunted their status by developing impossible beauty standards that take a fortune to achieve and maintain.
As for Lil Kim though, I’m leaning more towards deep insecurities and a troubled soul. It’s……….. disturbing to say the least that she has willingly done this to herself.
“Brainwashed and beaten down” because she is a WOC. WTH! Do you have any idea how many women, of every color, have been beaten down? Recovery Centers, Psych Wards and Domestic Violence Centers are full of them.
Just WOC have arbitrary standards of beauty? Hmm.
@Goo: Yes, I do know how many women of all colors, nationalities, ethnicities, sexualities, religions, etc., have been beaten down. We are not talking about those women, though, we are talking about Kim, who is obviously bleaching her skin, her hair, and reducing her nose size to fit into a certain standard of beauty. If you don’t think that’s related to the fact that she’s a black woman…okay then. Whatevs.
@Betsy: where did I say “just” women of color have arbitrary standards of beauty? Please point out that part of my comment. Do you deny that pale skin, straightened hair, a small nose, etc., have been our society’s “ideal” of beauty for centuries now? Do you not understand how that’s toxic for women of color? And how that toxicity could lead a vulnerable person to deface themselves with plastic surgery in an attempt to meet that ideal?
I get that these topics make people uncomfortable, but please let your gut reaction pass and then come back and think about it again.
I don’t know how this has turned into a racial issue, yet again. There are plenty of white women who have done absurd things to their faces trying to achieve some standard of beauty they have in their mind.
That’s exactly what I was going to say. These are not the actions of a well adjusted mental well woman. I feel bad for her that she feels like she needs to keep getting plastic surgery to fulfill some ideal. I always thought she was pretty before and it makes me sad that she obviously didn’t see herself accurately in the mirror.
I hope she find people to tell her she doesn’t need to keep doing this; that they will love her as she is.
Samantha, she is a Black woman who wants to be white…. Right, wrong or, indifferent, it is a FACT! Now, move on….
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Funny how you don’t want to discuss ALL the others who have been “beaten down”. Just this Black woman.
Um, Goo, you do realize this Celebitchy post is ABOUT Kim, right? And the plastic surgery she’s gotten? If Celebitchy had created a post about the history of women’s oppression, maybe I would have discussed “ALL the others,” but seeing as how this thread is about Kim, I thought it was appropriate to actually, you know, discuss KIM.
I just see a woman who hates herself. Hope she manages to pull herself together.
Yes, she apparently does hate herself, but she got a lot of help from society members who denigrate brown/dark-skinned black women. Since “Becky with the good hair” is the gold standard in many sectors of the black community, it shouldn’t shock people that some black women will internalize the hateful messages they hear about themselves. I grew up with immediate family members who believed “black is beautiful” for the most part and was found attractive by people of various backgrounds. I also received an education that allowed me to deconstruct white supremacist beauty standards, but not everyone is so fortunate.
^^ What WTW said. When I look at Kim, all I see is a woman whose power has been stolen from her by lies and hatred. I wish I could give her a big hug and tell her she’s beautiful.
you’re absolutely right. worked her music and we all knew she had low self esteem.
Clearly she has a lot of mental problems. You can only blame “society” and “popular culture” so much when it comes to a mindset that is this warped. (White women have done this to themselves too, btw.)
OK when I first glanced at the photo I thought it was (probably getting name wrong) a story of the Wildenstein woman having had corrective plastic surgery (woman who had the plastic surgery to look like a cat.)
My bad
Yikes. You must have a special level of self hatred to do that to yourself.
Yes really. In a way, I feel terrible for her. How much does she really hate herself to have done that?
I mean, we all have our issues. Do I want to lose weight? Sure. Do I wish I had stronger cheekbones? absolutely. Do I want to completely transform so that I look like an alien – obviously not.
Sad, sad, pathetically sad.
That’s how I feel too. Sure everyone has little things they’d like to change, but whatever is going on with her is so extreme and sad, she is nothing like she was before.
Truly alien. And, deranged.
I need to see the receipts. Are we SURE this is her?!?
It is her. But her skin is not really lightened it is makeup. If you go to her instagram, you can see. However, the nose job and such are real.
Painful to look at. The old Lil Kim was very attractive and now she looks like the cat lady. I know this is her choice but how can she possibly be happy with this?
This is what I just don’t get. Of course there are beauty standards that seem desirable for many, but IMO she was very good-looking / attractive to begin with and therefore already part of these standards.
Her original face was definitely pretty. She must have deep-rooted insecurities. She also clearly idolizes the blue-eyed-blonde-white-girl look. It makes me worry for her daughter.
So sad. She was just adorable before! And, as a white woman who happens to be asked my ethnicity often (I’m just plain old white, but dark eyes and skin and curly dark hair, thick lips–it just happened that way), I don’t fit into that blond, pale-yet-tan, razor sharp Barbie nose mold. But I would never think I’d feel like I had to modify it to that extent. It’s sad to think about what must be running through her head. Let’s hope her daughter is surrounded by strong women who encourage her to embrace everything she was made with!
This is sad.
I caught some reality show where she was having her baby shower and she was a mess. She ended up being 5 hours late and seemed totally out of it.
Just like Prince… bleaching themselves.
I don’t think Prince bleached. Prince was always light skinned. His parents were both from Louisiana and most likely had a mix of different racial backgrounds, like most black people from the region. You don’t really see a ton of change in Prince’s color across the years. So I really don’t think he was bleaching. Maybe he used those brightening products, but I don’t think he was doing what Lil Kim clearly is.
.
Prince’s mother is Italian, if I recall correctly. Or maybe that was just in the movie “Purple Rain” lol!
@ GG, You’re reaching! Not Every light skinned black person got that way by bleach and Prince was halt white, correct?
Prince wasn’t biracial, but he was certainly of a mixed background. His parents were both African Americans from Louisiana. There is a long history of racial mixing there – Cajuns, Creoles, Black Freedman, Native Americans, Latinos from South America and the Caribbean, etc. So odds are better Prince was just light due to genetic diversity more than bleaching. I just find it suspect because he didn’t really lighten any. He was always light-skinned and he stayed that way.
So she hired a non-shitty makeup artist?
So sad.
I feel uncomfortable looking at her. I wonder if her face feels uncomfortable? What is the procedure that makes your skin look so clear? Is it just makeup?
Ok am I wrong here? But in that photo where she has black hair, she looks like an Asian woman. Is she not Asian? Her skin texture wasn’t visibly great before (as in scars, large pores, and acne). She probably had a series of peels or dermabrasion to improve the texture, which can also make your skin a bit lighter just by removing any layers of tan or sun damage. She wasn’t very dark skinned in the first picture, to begin with. To me it just looks like her hair is bleached and her skin is maybe a little lighter. Why am I seeing something different than everyone else?
Isn’t this her third or fourth face?
Big cheek implants like Madonna got. It’s hard to look at what she’s done to her face.
Holy sh!t. WHY???????????????? My god, she looks like jigsaw. RIP Lil Kim’s old face.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
+1000
That’s exactly where I am jh.
She did something to her skin for sure. It’s obvious that she’s wearing alot of makeup. How much is it skin bleaching and how much is it makeup?
I’d wager it’s mostly bleach. Makeup can cover imperfections and spots, but there isn’t any widely available makeup out there that can totally alter your skin color. Either she’s wearing special effects makeup, which is above and beyond what most celebrity makeup artists do, or its bleaching. Which, either way, it’s crazy that anybody would feel a need to do it. So either way, it’s sad.
What about the pancake make-up actors use? That’s pretty much face paint, not make-up as most of us know it. If you piled that on, you could change your skin color. Maybe she has, then the top layer is something else to give it a different, more “realistic” texture.
This is sad. When she looks at herself in the mirror, does she actually think “damn, I look good!”? How f@cked up you have to be to do this to yourself?
I mourn the loss of her beautiful, cute and mischievous face circa “Hard Core”. Oh my god what a loss. I listened to that album soooo much and I loved her look! It’s depressing that she disliked herself so much that she believed she needed to totally replace her face.
In the IG pics she kinda looks like she’s put on some sort of white girl costume. It’s sad… I liked her original face.
I think she only looks slightly better now than she did in 2013 because of the more professionally done looking make-up…
On that six-photo montage, the top middle (if I didn’t know better) I would swear was the actress Billie Piper. Never in a million years would I have guessed that was Li’l Kim.
Madame puppet come to life
I know it’s her face and her choice, but…why would she do this to herself? It’s like she’s an entirely different person.
This like a psychological issue — like she’s been trying to look like Faith Evans for years now.
And now she’s gone from Faith Evans to Charli Baltimore.
Yes, I just thought of Charli Baltimore, too. When Lil Kim and Foxy Brown were in their heyday, they were both called ugly and compared to “beautiful” Charli Baltimore.
I wasn’t familiar with any of these ladies other than Lil Kim, so I went on a google image hunt—they are all attractive women, but IMO Kim (with her original face) was actually the best looking of the bunch.
wait, are her lips/mouth permanently pursed?
I wondered the same. At first I thought she was just sucking in her cheeks and pouting…. but now I’m not so sure.
That’s what I don’t get. I too thought she was making a face at first but now I think she had something done to make her lips look like that. It looks really awful and I’m angry that any plastic surgeon would go along with this.
ETA: Hmmmm…after looking at Sam’s link below maybe that’s just the shape of her mouth? I don’t remember her looking like that before but in that old pic, she def. had that pursed look.
I believe her eyebrows are “micro bladed” a new 3 year tattoo I was reading about
How does her daughter recognize her? Every time she sees her, it must be a new mommy.
Just for reference: this is her real face, back from when she was part of Biggie’s crew:
http://static.vibe.com/files/article_images/Lil-Kim-Biggie.jpg
Yeah….
And she was so adorable back then. It just makes me very sad to see her now. Whether it’s just a new standard of beauty or a deep self-loathing, it’s so sad either way.
I think Kim has spent a long time changing herself for others. She started as a battle rapper in NYC, and it was Biggie who suggested that she change her persona from a serious gangster rapper to a “sexy” image, rapping mostly about things men wanted to hear, as opposed to challenging them. She’s stuck with that persona ever since, and I wonder if she’s kind of lost sight of who she was before.
So sad. She didn’t need to change a single thing.
She had such a cute face. It’s a shame.
She definitely looked good in that photo with Biggie. No hint of perma-pursed lips either. Is she deliberately holding her face like that, as Kim Kardashian does in so many photos (her classic Zoolander look, aka duckface)? Or would plastic surgery gone wrong do that?
This is sad, I don’t have anything else to say.
Is that light makeup on her face? She used to be so pretty. Dang…
Those eyebrows are everything.
Otherwise, I do not care what she does to herself. You do you, Lil Kim.
I do love her eyebrows. Our family attended a vintage Hollywood-themed party Saturday night, and my 20-year-old daughter did my makeup for me, including my eyebrows. I felt completely magical, like Cinderella. It’s amazing what a difference something seemingly so inconsequential can make to one’s self esteem.
The next morning I felt like a plain ol’ pumpkin again. 🙂 But it got me thinking about the whole eyebrow tattooing thing.
She looks terrible….and I see she’s gone for the Kim K effect of having permanent duck lips. She was very cute before all the work and now she looks like a plastic doll. I don’t get it.
Her eyes even look like she got the “Kim K special”. They look exactly like hers, Kylie’s etc…
Robotic Sex Doll eyes on special this week, y’all! Call your local plastic provider. *gags*
Let’s see if you guys agree with me. She looks like Elsa (?) Pataky.
That is some wild self-hatred, right there. I feel for her. But especially for her little girl, who is being taught she’s not good enough every time she looks at her mother and her choices.
The comparison photos from 2013 and recently are almost the exact same pose. The only difference to her look is makeup and hair color. Without the eyelashes, added brow and blond hair her face is the same as the 2013 photo. Of course, that face is nothing like her original little Kim face but I fail to see a “new face” like kylie k, kim k, megan fox or original little kim, just new make up and styling.
How can she possibly believe that she looks good?
The woman’s got severe mental issues and people still commenting on her looks. Smh…
Do you think Kim Kardashian,Megan Fox,etc have mental issues as well.Why is it OK to comment on their “new” faces.Does everyone who uses plastic surgery to drastically change their face,their body have mental issues? I’m asking because I never see terms like self hatred on Kim K. threads?
Kim Kardashian does have underlying issues and doesn’t strike me as a happy person. I think she was seriously damaged by Demon Mother, as all the K kids were. I think Kim K was abused both emotionally and physically by Demon Mother. Often people stay far far away from an abusive parent as an adult, but Kim K has taken the alternate route of refusing to part from her abuser, although she is probably now well treated by the Demon thirsty for her 10%. But Kim K also is a pathological liar and pathologically self-absorbed, which has damaging consequences for other people in her life including her daughter. So I waver between feeling sorry for her and feeling really annoyed with her (and always hoping Kanye’s family whisks Nori away from Kim somehow…).
Maybe people are more sympathetic with this other Kim because she’s more obviously had a tough life? Although Kim Kardashian had a lousy childhood because of Demon Mother, so we can’t really compare personal pain levels. Money doesn’t make up for having a bad mother. That’s devastating for any child.
So I guess in interviews no one’s going to ask what the f*ck she did to herself huh? She changed her damn race. WTH??? She is Kim K 3.0 (Kylie is 2.0).
She has been asked before by Charlamagne,a radio personality,she refused to answer questions about her changing appearance.
Ha ! That’s interesting. I guess she is more like Kim K than I ever thought !
Exquisite? EXQUISITE? It’s all bizarre.
This is very sad. She was a beautiful black girl. You should post pictures of what she actually looked like- pre surgery. And I would never ever call this kind of obvious self hatred a ‘better’ look eyebrows or no eyebrows. What message is this sending to her poor daughter? In a time where there is this resurgence of black pride, black beauty, black power and black activism- this is very sad.
Sad… She’s dealing with some issues here clearly. And i guess its been happening for over a decade because its been a natural progression that we didn’t notice til now. When you listen to her talk about herself its never a positive self reflection.
Who cares if she wants to look white? It’s up to her. And if she likes it and feels good about herself , awesome. People make way too big a deal of skin color.
Shes morphing into Michael Jackson. I don’t know bout you people but her face is SCARY!