Last September, Linda Evangelista made a public statement about why she had been a recluse since 2016. Linda used to enjoy parties and fashion events, and then she just… went away. No one really understood why, and Linda finally decided to tell us: she had been “disfigured” by CoolSculpting, the cosmetic procedure where “fat” is “frozen” and then burned away by magic. It’s supposedly a non-invasive alternative to lipo. The problem is that Linda was part of the 1% to have a terrible reaction to CoolSculpting. She ended up filing a $50 million lawsuit against the company, and the suit is still pending. Now Linda covers the latest issue of People Mag, and she allowed People to take photos of her body (which you can see here).
Once one of the most photographed people in the world, supermodel Linda Evangelista has been living in seclusion for almost five years. Now she’s finally ready to share her story.
In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Evangelista, 56, opens up about the emotional and physical pain that has cast a shadow on her life in recent years, after she claims CoolSculpting — a popular, FDA-cleared “fat-freezing” procedure that’s been promoted as a noninvasive alternative to liposuction — left her “permanently deformed” and “brutally disfigured.” Evangelista filed a lawsuit in September suing CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., for $50 million in damages, alleging that she’s been unable to work since undergoing seven sessions of CoolSculpting in a dermatologist’s office from August 2015 to February 2016.
“I loved being up on the catwalk. Now I dread running into someone I know,” she tells PEOPLE through tears in this week’s cover story. “I can’t live like this anymore, in hiding and shame. I just couldn’t live in this pain any longer. I’m willing to finally speak.”
Within three months after Evangelista’s treatments, she started noticing bulges at her chin, thighs and bra area. The same areas she’d wanted to shrink were suddenly growing. And hardening. Then they turned numb. “I tried to fix it myself, thinking I was doing something wrong,” says Evangelista, and she began dieting and exercising more. “I got to where I wasn’t eating at all. I thought I was losing my mind.”
Finally, in June 2016 she went to her doctor. “I dropped my robe for him,” she recalls. “I was bawling, and I said, ‘I haven’t eaten, I’m starving. What am I doing wrong?’ ” When he diagnosed her with Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), she says, “I was like, ‘What the hell is that?’ And he told me no amount of dieting, and no amount of exercise was ever going to fix it.”
PAH 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. “That’s the upsetting part,” says Dr. Alan Matarasso, a New York City plastic surgeon and professor at Northwell School of Medicine (he has never treated Evangelista). “Patients go in to have something reduced, and now it’s enlarged. And the problem with PAH is that, in some instances, it may not go away. In many circumstances the affected areas are no longer amenable to liposuction like they would’ve been in the first place.”
People’s coverage included a statement from CoolSculpting, which you can read on the site. Linda’s lawsuit argues that no matter what CoolSculpting says now, back in 2016, they were not informing their clients/patients that PAH could happen to some people, or that a certain number of people would have a bad reaction to the procedure. As I said last year, I think Linda actually has a very good case. I feel really bad for her and those photos make her look spot heavy. Imagine starving yourself and still having all of these “bulging” areas on your body, and those areas are numb and hard. Ugh. This poor woman.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of People.
-
- Australia's Next Top Model welcomes Linda Evangelista,Image: 209349020, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Not available for publication in Australia, New Zealand. No Internet Use, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Wenn / Avalon
-
- MET Gala 2015 'China: Through The Looking Glass' Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – Arrivals,Image: 242381249, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Not available for publication in Germany, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Wenn / Avalon
-
- 2015 Fragrance Foundation Awards – Red Carpet Arrivals,Image: 250209323, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Ivan Nikolov / Wenn / Avalon
-
- 125556, Linda Evangelista at Harper’s Bazaar Celebrates Icons by Carine Roitfeld at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. New York, New York – Friday September 5, 2014. Photograph: © Darla Khazei, PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office: +1 310.822.0419 London Office: +44 208.090.4079 sales@pacificcoastnews.com FEE MUST BE AGREED PRIOR TO USAGE,Image: 530970556, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS, DIRECT SALES ONLY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE IN CAPTION – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Darla Khazei, PacificCoastNews / Avalon
-
- Britain’s Prince Charles attends an advent service held at Holy Trinity Brompton church in London, Britain, December 9, 2021.,Image: 647144842, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
She is still a very beautiful woman. I loved her look back in the day because she stood out so much. She was one of the few models that had short hair and it looked so great on her.
Exactly what I thought; she looks fine, why does she need to hide? jeez….I want to say she should just stop and go out there! no one is going to say anything
Is she implying women not as beautiful as she is or used to be (she looks fine) should hide?
She developed very large, hard, painful lumps on her body. It wasn’t about not looking like a supermodel, if you read the article, it is about not wanting to suffer pain and literally having her body misshapen.
Wow VS, you lost the plot. It’s about her self-image and self-esteem, not about anyone else or what they think about themselves. She’s relied on her looks for all of her life, so of course this affects her maybe more than most.
Fat should be soft, pliable, and what happened to Linda is the opposite of that. These pockets of PAH are hard & numb. They are not like normal subcutaneous fat. They are hurting her during movement if they aren’t bound.
This is not a case of liposuction didn’t work, it’s a case of liposuction damaging her.
let’s be clear here……she chose to do it! no one forced her…..no one put a gun to her face and ask her to do it! she has already brought charges against the company,
1) @Selene — I am happy you have not lost the plot; so going public to raise awareness of the potential side effects is good but I will repeat one more time, no one forced her to do it! those choosing to do cosmetic surgery should expect things to go wrong….yes she was not appropriately warned, hence the company might end up paying for it
2) @souperkay — hence why she is going to justice. liposuction damaging her because of primarily because of her own free will
Wow @VS, you seem to have lost your sympathy chip.
Just curious. Did you click through to see the pictures of the very noticeable large bulges she has developed? Or are you dismissing her obvious anguish and physical pain based solely on her face?
I had Coolsculpting done and I now feel so lucky that I did not have those awful side effects. What a nightmare!
Even if the probability of this happening is 1%, seeing Linda’s story is enough to put me off this type of procedure. This shouldn’t be offered to anyone. Her body and face were her profession, the damage this treatment has caused would be terrible on anyone, but i think it’s much worse when in top of it all, it literally also impacts your livelihood. My heart goes out to her and everyone else who is living with this.
Same. Also not doing lasers or radio frequency or anything that heats up my face. People are reporting fat melting and losing facial volume from those. Opposite of what one hopes to achieve
Same. The risk isn’t worth it to me. I feel so sorry for her.
One of my all-time favorite models. I checked out the photos, in spite of myself. Poor woman, I do feel bad for her. Still beautiful, of course, but I get that she doesn’t think so anymore.
I have to admit, when all this came out, I wondered if Linda Evangelista was exaggerating and was being dramatic about her looks– after all, my “average person” standard of what fat and “bulges” look like is very casual compared to hers.
Having looked at those photos and noticing how protruding those bulges are and that these are pretty distinct and look uncomfortable to live with and manage- I regret my skepticism and my heart goes out to her. Those look awful, and I hope she wins her lawsuit.
Also, I hope a designer does step up and dress her for the hell of it, because bulges or not, she is a living LEGEND, and it would be a beautiful gesture. Like I would love to see Christian Siriano collaborate with her for the hell of it, but also the old-school designers who used to work with her regularly.
Yeah me too. I feel awful for her. It would be horrible to walk with hard fat protrusions and all she’s dealing with – ON TOP of the pain of formerly being basically perfection.
That said she’s gorgeous still. I am glad she’s stepping out of the shadows and sharing the risks for others to hear
It’s not about whether she was the 1% who suffered side-effects, though. It’s about whether she was warned and thus consented to that possibility. There is always the chance of being in the 1%. She might have a great lawsuit — I don’t know the details. But I don’t think she wins just because she had side-effects if those side-effects were clearly explained and her consent was informed and proper.
Exactly. If she was properly warned, she has no case, bad outcomes happen. If she was not properly warned, that is a different story.
You’re def not alone – I absolutely thought she was just complaining that she was “normal” now. I feel very bad for that attitude today . Just goes to show us not to assume about stuff like this I guess. I hope she can find a surgery or something to fix this.
I looked at the photos and I honestly can’t see where she is disfigured. Does she look like she has gained weight from how she was thirty years ago? Yes. Does she have some jowls and wrinkles that she didn’t have in her heyday? Yes. But she is 56 years old now, so she was likely never going to look like she did when she reigned on the catwalk in the 90s. She looks like an attractive woman of her actual age. I understand from her interview that the cool sculpted areas are numb and painful, and I sympathize with that, but it’s insulting to every woman her age who has normal post-menopausal weight gain and facial aging to say she is disfigured and act like her life is over.
Look again. Those lumps are hardly like post menopausal weight gain. I had mixed feelings about this when the story came out, but my God. She has been disfigured. I don’t notice it in the chin area, at least in a quick view of the photos, but her under arm and lower belly protrusions are VERY hard to hide. And they are HARD.
Imagine walking. Unless you are superthin, your thighs might touch each other with the sensation of skin against skin. In her case, one of her thighs feels like concrete and it hurts the other side. I went through a series of normal movements to find out how unnatural it would feel to have these thick lumps. I am sorry that the FDA approved something which could have such negative consequences.
I’m shocked that it’s FDA approved for cosmetic use with a side effect like that. I’ve always thought that products that have extreme side effects have to be useful for a medical necessity.
Honestly, same. She just looks like a regular older woman who’s gained weight. No longer a supermodel but your average grandma. I feel that’s what hurts her the most. Her pride. Welcome to the average regular Joe club, Linda.
I’m a regular older woman and have gained some weight but I look NOTHING like that. These are hard, painful lumps that no amount of weight loss and exercise will remove. I don’t know if it’s possible to have them surgically removed, but to equate this disfigurement to nothing more serious than middle age weight gain is kinda mean.
Good for you Jaded, but I have family members in their 60s who look much worse than Linda, all due to being overweight. I also see many overweight women around me looking much worse than Linda honestly. She doesn’t look as bad as she makes it sound really. But I get that to her it’s the end of the world because she used to look “perfect” before.
People who are in constant chronic pain feel like their life is unbearable. Those of us who aren’t can’t really judge. And she is working through her journey to acceptance of this.
Maybe you don’t see it visibly, but it doesn’t make PAH sufferers experience any less. We see the lumps, but we don’t know how hard they are, how they hurt just to move, just to try to sleep. Imagine you have large stones attached to your body you can never remove. This isn’t just “extra fat”. The closest I can think of is hard tumors.
Thank you for this compassionate comment.
I agree with CHAINE 100%. It makes me so sad that at 56 she’s yet to figure out a mind, body balance. Physically, she’s still very beautiful. Mentally, I don’t think she has a very good opinion of herself.
For one of the greatest supermodels ever, she doesn’t look well. I’m only three years younger, and I don’t have what the poor woman is suffering from, odd hard fat deposits, a bloated face. I thought she was the most exquisite woman ever, and I would be devastated if I was known for my stunning looks to end up looking like she does.
I fit easily into my wedding dress and tiny 90’s dresses at 53, so no, it’s not a result of ageing that women become matronly and lumpy.
I feel for her, but I was a bit appalled by the word “disfigured” being used to describe what look in the photos like the kinds of weight gain issues many, many, many middle aged women deal with. I get that the fat has hardened and her sensation is numbed, which is 100% awful. But her use of “disfigured” really highlighted the completely rarified world she lives in.
She looks good on the cover photo at least.
Can’t see any signs of disfigurement there TBH?
Click on the pictures in the article to see the hard fat on inner thighs and u dear armpit. That looks to be painful.
PAH can look pretty frightful…It takes on the shape of the paddle and sticks out in a bizarre way. Not a normal soft bulge of fat.
Normalizing human bodies is the long term solution to these charlatans who make $$ off our insecurities, which are in turn carefully seeded by an image-based culture…entertainment, ads, social media influencers…
Yes, and as someone who has permanent scarring from a big accident I rolled my eyes hard at her use of the word “disfigured”. It just shows she thinks anyone with lumps, bumps, fat or scars is “disfigured” in her eyes and it’s a sad state of mind. What’s disfigured is how she views herself and how she defines beauty and the value of a person. But then if she had that straight she never would have done the procedure in the first place.
I have permanent scarring on my breast, armpit and abdomen from breast cancer, axillary lymph node removal and DIEP Flap surgeries to fill in the gaping hole in my breast. I don’t consider myself disfigured in any way but having large, painfully hard lumps is disfiguring. She was in a career that depends on her body looking a certain way, and now it doesn’t, and I feel sorry for her. Part of the reason she’s gone public is to dissuade people from choosing this method of fat removal and to highlight the fact that she was not informed of the potential dangers of it.
Middle aged women don’t deal with hard, painful and obvious lumps sticking out of their bodies; yes they gain weight and get some bags and sags but as an almost 70 year-old I can assure you I and my same-aged friends look nothing like that.
Jaded, I am so sorry you have been through this hardship. You sound like an absolute badass fighter. But your empathy and nuance in relating to another human being in pain is giving me hope for all of us. Thank you.🙏🏻
It’s not just her looks (she still looks beautiful!), but she is physically handicapped. She can not move without some kind of special dress that prevents her from hurting herself when she walks. Imagine that even sleep is affected when she tries to lay on her side and there is a hard bump. My goodness, very terrible.
I think what some people are missing when they say the extent of her bodily change is not disfiguring is that these “bulges” are not typical fat but hard masses. Two hard masses on each of her thighs rubbing together if she walks without wearing a girdle to protect her skin sounds excruciating. (Imagine how that affects your gait!) Not being able to let your arms hang naturally at your sides or swing back and forth as you walk because you have hard masses under your arms sounds excruciating. (I lasted about two hours with the hard bulge of crutches under my arms before I begged for a silky undergarment.) It may not look like much from photos if you think it just makes her look heavier, but for everyone of us, living in our own bodies is a far different experience of comfort and judgment than for those people merely looking at our bodies.
Exaclty. And I bet it influences her ability to sleep as well. Gosh, what a nightmare, to have such adverse impact.
Linda , Christy, Iman, Yasmeen Ghouri(disappeared) and Naomi will always be the tops for me. It will never change. They were chameleon.
Didn’t Yasmeen marry a guy from Duran Duran? I thought it was the lead singer and that they are still married.
You are talking about Yasmin Le Bon.
I feel for her and the pain she has gone through. I hope that the damage can be repaired and her pain be lifted. She is still such a beauty after all these years.
If this was a side-effect of a medical procedure for health reasons I would sympathize, but she did this to herself out of pure vanity. I’m sorry but there’s actual patients who’ve been burned, disfigured or maimed and who really are living in hell due to no fault of their own so her description of her nightmarish privileged millionaire life now is almost insulting.
Then you should judge everyone that has cosmetic/plastic surgery as Botox is literally a poison, not to mention that a silicone prosthesis can burst and poison the rest of the body.
Plastic surgeries are surgeries, if she wasn’t warned of the countereffects she’s quite right in her statements.
I agree, I’m not judging her suing the company, she has every right to. I’m judging her for whining about living in a “nightmare” and being “disfigured” as if she is an actual invalid with lost limbs and a melted-off face. It’s her attitude that bothers me and her lack of gratitude for what she has that many, many people don’t – health and financial security. And she still looks better than most women her age I know.
I’m not against people having cosmetic surgery but you have to accept that it comes with its risks just like ANY type of medical treatment. I can’t believe she has been living in a cave and has never heard of a cosmetic treatment gone wrong and people dying afterwards, so she must have had some inkling that it can be dangerous. I do believe she had no idea just how bad this could go wrong but I can’t believe she went to get cosmetic treatment thinking she’s getting her nails done. Well at least I hope so, but I could be wrong.
I’m 56 and don’t have lumps of fat which make it painful for me to walk, sleep and live my general life. To those slamming her for having cosmetic treatment – who are you to judge? Her body has been disfigured if she has hard masses on her body.
Is it too much to empathise with someone in pain without feeling the need to wag our fingers and tell them it’s their own fault?
Thank you Ellie, I 100% agree.
@Ellie I completely agree. And I say this as someone with titanium rods in my back and a full thickness burn scar (which apparently means I’m qualified to complain?). She can’t walk without experiencing pain unless she wears a special girdle. The combo of physical disfigurement, chronic pain, loss of career, being a public figure and no hope of the PAH improving or going away sounds like hell.
Are we really judging her anguish based on those photos? If your entire life and career has been based on your appearance then yes, if you have been disfigured, as she shows and describes, you have every right to feel anguished and in her case reclusive.
The “oh, it’s not that bad” mentality to anything belittles the feelings of the victim. She’s explained the pain and disfigurement in the accompanying article and bless her for sharing the photos – I don’t think she is looking for anyone to “validate” her suffering – she is suing for her own pain and suffering and loss of ability to work and hoping to help others who may not be making informed choices about cosmetic procedures which on the surface sound non-invasive.
I hope she can find a way past this and it would be lovely to see her model again if she felt comfortable with it and if the industry welcomed her back. Body image and mental health are vastly intertwined for many people – women and men alike. If we can show compassion instead of belittling or shaming them we could do a lot more good for society where so many people are striving for the unattainable perfection that is often shown to us in media.
The thing is, I believe her anguish is real but what I find incredible is that it comes from the fact she looks like an average older woman now. She doesn’t actually look disfigured, nobody threw acid in her face. I’m sure living with those lumps is uncomfortable but she isn’t an invalid, she didn’t lose a limb. Hell she isn’t even sick, she wasn’t diagnosed with cancer. She’s healthy and financially secure. She’s not even ugly, I still think she looks beautiful honestly, but I find her mentality ugly.
Oh and the irony of the story of a woman surviving an attack by a serial killer placed right on top of Linda’s photo on that cover couldn’t be greater. Shows what we prioritize in this world. Almost lost your life? Who cares. Gained a few unattractive bumps and look older? Unfathomable!
She absolutely doesn’t look like an average older woman now, I certainly don’t have huge lumps of hard fat coming out of my armpit or groin area. Why are you working so hard to invalidate what she’s going through? God forbid someone beautiful also go through hardship, apparently they’re not allowed to.
She certainly doesn’t look like an average older woman. I’m an average older woman and although I’ve gained a few pounds and have some sagging, I do NOT have large, hard and painful protrusions on my body. As I mentioned above, I’m a breast cancer survivor and have some terrible scarring on my body from multiple surgeries, but do not consider myself disfigured. However Linda IS disfigured no matter how hard you try to trivialize it. It has ruined her career and I applaud her for coming forward about it to warn others not to attempt this type of procedure.
Yes, I should have written that she looks like the older average women I know, not in general, my mistake. In fact she looks better than all women her age that I know, but okay, that is just my experience. The women I know in their 50s and 60s struggle with worse health conditions and have much bigger lumps of fat tissue all over their bodies that look much worse than Linda’s. In fact much younger obese people I know look much worse than Linda.
But I’m glad commentators on here look nothing like this even though I didn’t specifically call out anyone and said Linda looks like you, lol. Funny how people took that personally.
@A.Key — you must have chosen your 50s and 60s-aged friends based on their health conditions and weight struggles. My friends, in their 60s and 70s, haven’t had to struggle as much as yours and don’t look like walking dumplings. Some have had hip or knee replacements, one died of heart disease, and I am, as I said, a breast cancer survivor who doesn’t give a sh*t about all my scars, I’m still alive and healthy. Most of us are dealing with the the effects of aging in as positive a way as possible. Furthermore, we are not taking your comments personally, and it’s our right to sympathize with anyone who has gone through what they were told was a safe process to help them maintain their career longevity but rendered them permanently disfigured and in pain. End of.
She still remains one of my favorite supermodels BUT i’m getting Carrie Underwood vibes from all of this.
@lovealot exactly I think there’s some body dysmorphia or something going on because I’m not seeing how she looks “bad.” But I understand it hurts too and that’s of course really sucks.
This is honestly heartbreaking. Nobody deserves that.
The really sad part of this is that she was perfection before she had this done. There is an article with photos in the Daily Mail (I know) that showed her in 2015 at the Met Gala the year before she had the procedure. She looked every bit the supermodel. It is awful that she wasn’t happy with herself. Seriously, I hope she gets some money out of this and persuades women to stay far away from cool sculpting.
Clicking the link I could only find two pics of the adipose pockets the one sort of under her arm towards her back and the one on her inner thigh where she’s wearing mint stretchy pants…am I missing others? I know they’re hardened and uncomfortable but looks-wise she still looks great to me.
Read the actual article and look at the pictures in people. Her legs look so painful.
I bet she cant walk.
I think the damage is also on her face, her jawline and under her chin. I feel very bad for her. I read that in medical malpractice suits, if you have very, very good evidence, you still only have 50% chance of winning the suit. Again, male white doctors and the American Medical Association stanning for them have made the public feel that doctors are supermen and heroes. I know there is more diversity with doctors now, but I still feel the image of sterling perfection is there.
The backlash she’s getting in some of these comments remind me of when it started coming out that the silicone breast implants they were using weren’t great, resulting in scar tissue, leakage, worse.
The ones who had reconstructive surgery post mastectomy got the sympathy. For the most part, the ones who chose breast augmentation for non reconstructive reasons didn’t, “she looked fine before,” “She wanted this.” The lack of sympathy for LE (and women like KK, even rape victims with any sort of sexual past) because they’re not “Perfect Victims” (TM) actually does a disservice to the “sympathy deserving” victims because their pedestal is so wobbly.
Nahhh, that hard lump in between her legs looks painful, I feel so sorry for her.
I hope she at least gets a large amount of money from this. I also saw that large hard lump on her side/back. horrible.
Being uncomfortable in your own body is draining to live with. I’ve spent countless hours trying to camouflage my ugly inner-thighs (?). I really hope she’s able to sort it out. She¿s still stunning, of course, but I 100% believe her self-esteem, confidence and happiness has taken a huge hit.
Oh gosh, everyone – esp women – who needs to read this, please LOVE YOUR BODY as it is and don’t buy into the structural violence of the plastic-surgery industry, beauty industry, etc. Linda, you are beautiful and loved as you are. I love my chunky thighs and roll-y tummy, eat healthily/mindfully out of respect for my body, and give gratitude for the living temple that is my body every day.
Also, we have to love our bodies and go way beyond this need to be seen as sexual beings / sexually attractive women/men/trans. Excessive focus on sexuality is very limiting to growth and good mental health.
I had to look through the photos several times to see the lumps, and they don’t seem disfiguring (and I only see the armpit and upper thigh lumps, nothing on the chin), but the fact that they are hard definitely changes things. The thigh one would make it uncomfortable to walk.
It all boils down to if she was warned beforehand that this could be a side effect. It sounds like there’s a warning on this product now but who knows about 5 years ago.
As far as no longer being able to model, how much of the supermodels from the 80s and 90s do we see today anyway? Sounds like she was 51 when she had this done, which clearly means she had aged out of her peak modeling days. So, assuming there was no warning of side effects, she should get damages for the pain these lumps now cause her, but nothing extra because she’s no longer able to model.
And I’m kind of shocked at these comments. I mean, I never thought Linda was particularly attractive anyway (ducks and hides), but I certainly don’t think she’s attractive now, even ignoring the bulges. She’s not unattractive, but she doesn’t appear to have aged well. I’m 49, and know many more attractive older women in real life than her.