‘I was silenced after my boob job went wrong. Two years on, I can finally speak out’
Model Katy Morgan spent thousands on a cosmetic procedure performed by a surgeon known as the ‘boob god’, but after a contaminated implant left her hospitalised, she spent two-and-a-half years fighting for her right to talk about what had happened. Finally allowed to speak out, she tells Radhika Sanghani about the life-altering surgery – and how she was silenced by an NDA
When Katy Morgan had her second child, her breasts changed. “They went massive during pregnancy, then deflated,” explains the 32-year-old model. “I wanted them to go back to what they were pre-pregnancy – a firm 34D.”
Morgan decided to get cosmetic surgery for the first time, and chose Dr Riccardo Frati, a renowned Harley Street plastic surgeon whose website describes him as the “boob god” and “surgeon to the stars”.
“He’d done all the celebrities, and I couldn’t find one bad review against him,” says Morgan. “Everything online about him was positive. I thought I’d be in safe hands.”
She paid £8,500 for her breast implants, and the surgery was carried out in April 2021. But, a few days later, Morgan collapsed and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. “I had a contaminated implant, and it had given me an infection,” she explains. “They had to do emergency surgery to remove the implant, wash it out, and it was put inside me. It was awful.”
She also developed necrosis on her other breast, and five years later, still experiences pain in her breasts, as well as issues with the positioning of the implants – “they’re not actually in the pocket – the left one floats around. It goes under my armpit, so I have to push it over.”
The impact of the complications was huge for Morgan, whose two children were aged one and six at the time. She kept it quiet, until 2023 when someone she knew was planning to visit Dr Frati for surgery. “My friends told me, you need to make people aware of your experience. So I did.”
She posted a TikTok sharing images of her breasts as well as photos of her in hospital. It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Then, weeks later, Morgan received a letter in the post explaining she was being sued by Dr Frati for breaking her non-disclosure agreement (NDA). “I had no idea I’d even signed one,” says Morgan, who claims she was heavily medicated at the time of signing it – a claim that Dr Frati disputes.
The contract refunded the cost of her surgery but did not include any compensation and barred her from publicly criticising Dr Frati, or providing information to industry regulators. “I’d broken it twice because I went to his regulators a month after my surgery complaining about the aftercare and his treatment,” says Morgan. “And I’d posted about him online.”
At a hearing in September 2023, Dr Frati was granted an interim injunction against Morgan, which prevented her from speaking out about him. She was forced to delete her TikTok and refrain from commenting on the case.
It was only this January, two-and-a-half years later, that a judge lifted the injunction against Morgan, enabling her to finally speak out about her experience.
“He took away my voice,” says Morgan. “I had my breasts done to get my confidence back after being pregnant. It was for my own self. But I wasn’t even allowed to speak about it.”
She still struggles with the results of her surgery – “my breasts are awful. I hide it well, but I don’t model like I used to. My sexual life is different. I should be in the prime of my life, but I no longer have the body confidence I used to” – but being silenced was even worse.
“I had to find the strength to say, no, this is my body, it’s my choice, I have a right to speak about my own experiences and say if I’m not happy with something,” she says. “I want it to be fair, and for other women to make their own judgements with the good and the bad. Everyone will have bad reviews and people they prefer, but it should be out there for people to make their own informed decisions.”
Zelda Perkins, founder of Can’t Buy My Silence UK, a campaign committed to ending the misuse of NDAs to buy victims’ silences, has seen the agreements used regularly in the medical world. “There’s not one sector that’s clean and clear of using NDAs to hide malpractice,” she says. “It’s not that everyone’s corrupt, but over the last 40 years it’s become ‘standardised’ to use confidentiality as reputational protection. That’s not what confidentiality is for.
“The reality is this is so simple – it’s about the integrity of the law. It shouldn’t be possible to have a legal agreement, private contract or not, that hides harm. That makes a mockery of the integrity of the law.”
Perkins herself experienced the silencing of an NDA. She was a personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein in the late 1990s, and after witnessing and experiencing repeated sexual harassment by Weinstein, she was pressured into signing an NDA as part of her settlement. She broke the NDA in 2017 after nearly two decades of enforced silence.
“I was told my NDA said I couldn’t speak to the police, but I didn’t know that wasn’t legally enforceable until 2017,” says Perkins, explaining that the legal jargon means people signing NDAs are unaware that the content isn’t always legal or enforceable. “The whole point of these confidentiality clauses in these agreements is to obfuscate. When people are pushed to sign an agreement with a time limit, understanding the implications of confidentiality is very hard.”
She praises Morgan for fighting her legal battle to have the injunction lifted, explaining that every time an NDA is fought in the courts, it raises awareness. She’s also not surprised that for Morgan, the hardest part of her experience was “the agony and harm of being silenced”.
“It’s a basic human right being removed from someone not being able to speak about a harm that’s happened to them,” she says. “Beyond the public interest, it’s a devastating process to go through being silenced. It has a personal impact as well as a public impact.”
“Fighting the case took away precious time from my children,” says Morgan. “I’ve been in this situation with him for nearly three years.” She still has a hearing on 9 February, where she hopes to have the case finally thrown out.
Elliot Hammer, a media litigation partner at Branch Austin McCormick, the firm representing Morgan, says: “Lifting the injunction was a significant victory, allowing Katy to tell her story to the press. Katy has pleaded that the claim is a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) and our strike-out hearing on 9 February 2026 will decide whether the NDA is void for public policy or undue influence reasons.”
Don’t let a man take away your voice
A statement from the surgeon’s legal team reads: “Dr Frati is limited in his ability to discuss freely the details of any case because of the importance of patient confidentiality. He is a deeply caring, considerate and experienced clinician. The health and wellbeing of all his patients is his absolute priority.
“He categorically denies the allegations made in this case, which are the subject of ongoing legal and regulatory proceedings. They are disputed and have not been determined by any court or regulator. The recent court hearing concerned interim and procedural issues only. No findings were made on the merits of any allegations, which remain to be determined through the proper legal process. At no stage has Dr Frati sought to prevent a patient from talking to a regulator or other governing authority.”
In the meantime, Morgan is simply grateful to be able to speak out about her story, and hopes it helps other women who may be in similar positions. “Don’t let a man take away your voice,” she says.
“Don’t be threatened and intimidated by powerful people to tell you what you can and can’t say about something that happened to you personally and your own body.”
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