Linda Evangelista has revealed that she still gets botox, after she tried the CoolSculpting procedure that left her face “disfigured”.
The 58-year-old supermodel reflected on her decision to get the cosmetic procedure during a recent interview with Vogue, as she appeared on the cover of the magazine’s September issue. As noted by CoolSculpting’s official website, the procedure is a brand name for the fat-freezing process cryolipolysis.
In September 2021, Evangelista took to Instagram to share her series of rare side effects after the procedure, including an alleged increase in “fat cells” that left her “permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries”.
During her recent interview with Vogue, she said that over the years, she hasn’t been concerned about how her appearance could change through ageing. However, she also acknowledged how that remark was a little “hypocritical,” as she revealed that she still gets botox.
“I don’t mind and I never did mind ageing. Aging gets us to where we want to be, and that’s for me a long life,” she said. “[Makeup artist] Kevyn Aucoin was so afraid of wrinkles and he never got them. I want wrinkles—but I Botox my forehead so I am a hypocrite—but I want to grow old.”
She added that she’s looking forward to ageing, as she’s a mother to a 16-year-old son, Augustin, who she shares with ex François-Henri Pinault. “I want to watch my son grow into a fine young man,” she added. “I just want to stick around.”
However, the model also recalled that before the news broke about her experience with CoolSculpting, she contacted some of her famous friends, including Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, who appeared on the Vogue cover with her.
“I couldn’t live with it anymore,” she said. “I wanted to go outside.”
This isn’t Evangelista’s first time sharing her candid thoughts about cosmetic procedures, specifically CoolSculpting. During an interview with British Vogue in September 2022, she opened up about her decision to undergo the surgery in the first place, explaining that it came after she’s seen countless commercials about it.
“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. It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I’m a little vain,” she said. “So I went for it – and it backfired.”
She specified that after the procedure, she developed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which is when the fatty tissue in the body grows instead of shrinking in response to the treatment. While she said she tried everything to reverse the results, she said that nothing helped. She then recalled that she’d ultimately hit a low point where she’d even tried to stop eating.
“I was so embarrassed, I’d just spent all this money and the only way I could think of to fix it was zero calories, and so I just drank water,” she said. “Or sometimes I would have a stick of celery or one apple. I was losing my mind.”
Evangelista, who was one of the most successful models in the 1990s, went on to confess that if she’d known the risk of the procedure, she wouldn’t have done it. “If I had known side effects may include losing your livelihood and you’ll end up so depressed that you hate yourself…” she said tearfully. “I wouldn’t have taken that risk.”
Following the 2021 procedure, the supermodel filed a lawsuit against Zeltiq, the company which markets CoolSculpting for $50m in damages. While settled the lawsuit in July 2022, although the terms of the settlement were unclear.
“I’m pleased to have settled the CoolSculpting case. I look forward to the next chapter of my life with friends and family, and am happy to put this matter behind me,” Evangelista wrote to her Instagram Story at the time.
