Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu says she plans to dissolve her filler: ‘Natural beauty is a lot prettier’

Reality TV star says people are being more honest about having cosmetic enhancements

Ekin-Su Culculoglu won 2022 Love Island (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Love Island winner Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu has said she plans to dissolve her filler as she reflected on the stigma around cosmetic enhancements.

The reality TV star discussed how previous “taboos” around cosmetic surgery are changing and the younger generation are more likely to be honest about work they have done.

“People now realise you can’t lie,” Cülcüloğlu said in a new interview with The Guardian. “Nobody’s stupid, it just makes you look fake if you say, ‘I haven’t had anything done,’ when you clearly have.”

Recent years have seen an uptick in the number of celebrities who are being more honest about cosmetic work they have had done.

Notable figures include models Bella Hadid, who recently opened up about her regrets over getting a nose job at the age of 14, and Linda Evangelista, who sued Zelta Aesthetics over a fat-freezing treatment which she claims left her “permanently deformed”.

Fellow Love Islander Molly-Mae Hague revealed in December 2021 that she had decided to have her fillers dissolved.

Cülcüloğlu won this year’s Love Island with her partner, Davide Sanclimenti. She said that watching herself back on the show had prompted her to “strip down” her appearance.

“Whatever lip filler I have, I’m going to dissolve. I didn’t like the fake look. I think natural beauty is a lot prettier,” she said, adding that this is also why she swapped out her blonde highlights on the show for her natural brunette hair.

Clarifying if she has had any other cosmetic treatments, Cülcüloğlu said: “I’ve not had anything major done to myself, right? OK, apart from the boobs.”

In an appearance on The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast, Hague said she decided to dissolve her fillers after she realised she no longer recognised herself because of the treatments.

“There was this one pivotal moment where I’d gone and got loads of filler and I posted a YouTube video and I hadn’t let the filler settle and it was really swollen and a screenshot from that video, it trended on Twitter for weeks,” Hague said.

“I literally looked like a different person. When I look back at pictures now, I’m terrified of myself. I’m like, ‘Who was that girl?’ I don’t know what happened.”