Linda Evangelista says she’s in therapy after cosmetic surgery left her ‘brutally disfigured’

Canadian fashion icon sued the company behind the procedure

Linda Evangelista (Getty Images)

Linda Evangelista has opened up about the botched cosmetic procedures that left her with permanent body damage and needing therapy.

In a revealing new Harper's Bazaar interview, the Canadian fashion icon detailed more of the horror she endured as a result of multiple cosmetic procedures. The model underwent CoolSculpting — a non-invasive body contouring procedure that is a popular alternative to liposuction — in 2015. The procedure freezes and destroys fat cells.

But she says she was hit with a permanent unwanted side effect from the procedure that left her “brutally disfigured.” The model suffers from hardened fat in her abdomen, thighs, and under her armpits. The condition is called Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia and affects less than 1% of patients who opt for CoolSculpting sessions.

"I have to go through therapy to like what I see when I look in the mirror, and I still don’t look in the mirror," she told Harper's Bazaar. "I didn’t want to see myself because I didn’t love myself or like myself."

She sued the company behind the procedure, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., for $50 million in 2021 after opening up about the side effects for the first time. She alleged in the lawsuit that she was rendered unable to work after seven treatments between August 2015 and February 2016.

The fashion icon said the treatments she took had left her unable to work for months, although she has since returned to modeling (Getty)

Evangelista has since settled the lawsuit and returned to modeling.

However, she did say she would do it all again if there weren’t repercussions.

"I used to ask myself all the time, ‘Would you drink the magic potion knowing it comes with these repercussions?’ Obviously, no, because you saw the repercussions," she told the outlet.

"But if there were no repercussions, of course you’d drink the magic potion if you could afford it, and it’s there for you, and other people have used it successfully."

Evangelista has put the work in, as she told the outlet, and is finally getting to a place where she feels better in her body.

"I don’t care how I age," she explained. "I just want to age. It doesn’t have to be gracefully. I really, really, really don’t want to die. I have still so much to do. I’m finally getting comfortable with myself and with everything, and now I want to enjoy it.”