Linda Evangelista hasn’t sworn off cosmetic enhancements entirely. Even after a past procedure she claims left her “brutally disfigured,” the 90s fashion icon admits in an interview with British Vogue that she gets Botox. “I don’t mind and I never did mind aging,” the supermodel said in the interview along with her elite peers of the era, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington. “Aging gets us to where we want to be, and that’s for me a long life,” she continued. “Kevyn Aucoin was so afraid of wrinkles and he never got them. I want wrinkles – but I Botox my forehead so I am a hypocrite – but I want to grow old. I want to watch my son grow into a fine young man. I just want to stick around.”
Linda’s re-emergence into the public spotlight comes after her revelation that she underwent seven sessions of CoolSculpting, commonly known as “fat freezing,” between 2015 and 2016. In September of 2021, after retreating into what she described as the life of a “recluse,” she took to Instagram to share her story.
“Today I took a big step towards righting a wrong that I have suffered and have kept to myself for over five years,” she wrote in the Sept 22, 2021 Instagram post. “To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure,” the statement continued. “[It] did the opposite of what it promised. It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful corrective surgeries. I have been left, as the media described, ‘unrecognizable.’”
The iconic beauty then went on to explain a condition she claims she developed. “I have developed Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia or PAH, a risk of which I was not made aware before I had the procedures,” she explained. “PAH has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing. In the process, I have become a recluse,” she concluded in part. “With this lawsuit, I am moving forward to rid myself of shame and going public with my story.”
In July of 2022, the supermodel announced that she’d settled her case with the company. “I’m pleased to have settled the CoolSculpting case,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time. “I look forward to the next chapter of my life with friends and family, and am happy to put this matter behind me. I am truly grateful for the support I have received from those who have reached out.”