Supermodel Linda Evangelista’s Slow Road To Self-Love After Cosmetic Procedure Left Her Disfigured

Supermodel Linda Evangelista says she was traumatized after undergoing the body-contouring procedure CoolSculpting, which left her body “disfigured.”

Within three months of the treatment, hardened bulges of fat appeared on her chin, thighs and in her bra area, ruining her career — and her life.

Evangelista, 60, who graced more than 700 magazine covers and once quipped she didn’t wake up for less than $10,000, underwent seven sessions of the procedure in a dermatologist’s office from August 2015 to February 2016.

But mortified by how her million-dollar face and figure then looked, the cover girl went into hiding for five years, she revealed in a 2021 Instagram post. She said she had been diagnosed with a rare side effect of the CoolSculpting procedure known as paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, in which the freezing process causes the affected fatty tissue to thicken and expand.

“If I walk without a girdle in a dress, I will have chafing to the point of almost bleeding,” she says. She can also no longer lay her arms flat along her side because of the fatty bulges.

To come to terms with her new reality, “I [had] to go through therapy to like what I see when I look in the mirror, and I still don’t look in the mirror,” the former runway regular says.

“I’m trying to get to the place where I like myself, flaws and all, and trying to love myself,” she adds.

The beauty settled her $50 million lawsuit against Zeltiq Aesthetics, the parent company of CoolSculpting, in 2022.