Supermodel Linda Evangelista has opened up about the emotional toll that her botched cosmetic procedure has had on her.
Appearing on the front cover of People magazine for the first time since the procedure left her "brutally disfigured", Evangelista got candid in the interview that accompanied the photoshoot.
The 56-year-old, who was once one of the most photographed women in the world, was left "permanently deformed" after undergoing a cosmetic procedure known as CoolSculpting or cryolipolysis. She previously told her fans that she has since developed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia.
She has shared with People the first pictures of her body since the fat-freezing procedure.
The FDA-cleared "fat-freezing" procedure is billed as a "non-invasive alternative to liposuction". Sadly, Linda suffered a "rare side effect" which saw her fat cells do the opposite of what the treatment was supposed to do - they increased instead of decreased.
"I loved being up on the catwalk. Now I dread running into someone I know," she told the magazine "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."
Linda, who was one of the top-earning models of the 1980s and 90s, also revealed that within just three months of the procedure, she began noticing bulges around her chest area, thighs, and chin.
The parts of her body she aimed to decrease in size were suddenly increasing. They then hardened and turned numb.
"I tried to fix it myself, thinking I was doing something wrong," Evangelista said, adding that she started dieting and working out more. "I got to where I wasn't eating at all. I thought I was losing my mind."
In June 2016, the model decided to go to her doctor after her symptoms became increasingly concerning.
"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?'"
Linda's doctor then diagnosed her with Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), to which she responded: "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."