Linda Evangelista 'was persuaded by TV commercials' to get fat freezing procedure

Linda Evangelista has revealed how she was persuaded by TV commercials to undergo a fat-freezing cosmetic procedure that left her with a rare side effect she says was jeopardizing her earning -pain.

< p class="dcr-3jlghf">The supermodel graces the cover of British Vogue's September issue, her first since announcing that she had been "permanently deformed after a treatment known as CoolSculpting.

Although she initially thought the remedy was a 'magic potion', it led her to having liposuction after developing complications that left things "sticking out of me".

In the Vogue interview, she said, "Those CoolSculpting ads were running all time, on CNN, on MSNBC, over and over again, and they'd ask, "Do you like what you see in the mirror?"

"They were talking to me. It was stubborn fat in areas that didn't move. It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I'm a little vain. So I went - and it backfired.

Evangelista, 57, said she tried various methods to correct the rare post-operative complication, known as paradoxical adipose hyperplasia. She had two liposuction sessions and at some point she stopped eating.

"I was so embarrassed, I had just spent all that money and the only way i could think of fixing it was zero calories, and so i just drank water. Or sometimes I would take a celery stick or an apple,” she said. "I was losing my mind."

Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which is rare, occurs when the freezing of fat cells causes a reaction in the adipose tissue that causes the expansion cells rather than breaking them down.

Evangelista said she was "now trying to love me as I am" but still regrets the procedure. "If I had known the side effects could include losing your livelihood and you'd end up being so depressed you'd hate yourself...I wouldn't have taken the risk."

She said she was still suffering from the psychological effects of the botched operation, but had received help from her friends.

"Am I mentally cured?" Absolutely not,” she said. "But I'm so grateful for the support I've had from my friends and my industry...You're not going to see me in a bathing suit, that's for sure. It's going to be hard to find jobs with things that stick out from me; without retouching, or squeezing things, or gluing them, or compressing them, or tricking them."

In Vogue images, taken by the veteran photographer Steven Meisel, Evangelista looks recognizably glamorous, though noticeably covered. It's not my jaw and my neck in real life — and I can't walk around with tape and rubber bands all over the place,” Evangelista said in the interview. "You know what, I try to love myself as I am, but for the pictures...Look, for the pictures, I still think we're here to create fantasies."

Evangelista was one of the first models – in 1990 she joked "you don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day" – but the reality behind the glamor of that era is now leaked.

After Kate Moss opened up about her experiences as a young model on Desert Island Discs in July, Evangelista also shared the story of a modeling contract in Japan when I was 16.

"I went to the agency and that was it, 'get naked, we need your measurements' , but they already had my measurements," she said. "They wanted me to be naked and it wasn't a 'would you do nudes' conversation, it was a 'would you do nudes' conversation. I left and called my mom and she said "Exit now and go to the Embassy. "So I did, and they took me home."

The model originally opened up about her experiences with CoolSculpting on Instagram in September 2021. She then sued Zeltiq Aesthetics, the company behind CoolSculpting, citing serious injury, for $50m (£42m).