Tulisa Contostavlos has revealed she has finally got answers after suffering with “horrific” health issues for 12 years.
The N-Dubz singer and former X Factor judge, 36, turned to numerous doctors after feeling as though there were ants crawling across her face and like her “cheek was on fire”.
In 2020, she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, which is a temporary weakness or lack of movement that usually affects one side of the face.
The Playing With Fire hitmaker - who is reported to be appearing on this year’s series of I’m A Celebrity - says she turned to fillers to attempt to “balance out” her face due to the effects of the condition, but said that her facial swelling kept recurring.
Then, finally, this year, she had an ultrasound which srevealed she had “three chronically infected cysts” in her cheek.
Appearing on Olivia Attwood's podcast So Wrong It's Right, she said: “I've no idea what they were caused by, they weren't filler, they were just self-occurring, but I came out of the operation and instantly my face was less swollen.
“There's some still there so I still have the inflammation but it's way less. In the next two months [the doctor’s] going to go in to get those ones.”
Detailing the symptoms she experienced, which became particularly bad when N-Dubz reunited in 2022 after a 10-year hiatus, she said: “I would have like tingling sensations like little ants crawling in my face. I started seeing doctors all around the UK – ‘Something's wrong with me, what's wrong with my face’ – it was so scary. This went all the way up until this year it was horrific.
“I constantly felt like my cheek was on fire. I'd have good days and bad days and on some days, I'd take steroids, which would bring it down.
“When I was doing that N-Dubz run it was at its worst, so you might see an interview, I look normal. And then you see another interview, it's like, what the hell is going on with my face?
“And I’ve had all these health problems for years – sarcoidosis, immune disorders – and this explains all the symptoms that I was getting and could have been causing Bell’s palsy because in total there was, I think, six of them [the cysts]. They could have been growing over the years, actually triggering the Bell’s.”
