Linda Evangelista made her return to the modeling world after a shocking cosmetic surgery procedure “brutally disfigured” her. The model, 57, posted a photo from her new collaboration with Fendi on Instagram recently, which is believed to be the first modeling job she’s taken after opening up about the experience with CoolSculpting that she says changed her life.
“On September 9 2022 [Fendi] will host a special fashion show in New York City to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the [FendiBaguette], designed by [silviaventurinifendi], and two years since [mrkimjones] joined the Maison as Artistic Director of Couture and Womenswear. [Fendi,]” Evangelista wrote in the caption, noting that she was “so grateful” to everyone involved in the campaign.ย
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Evangelista made headlines in September 2021 after she shared on Instagram why she had stepped back from the modeling world in recent years. “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,” she wrote at the time. She continued that the procedure allegedly “increased, not decreased” her fat cells, which caused her to be “permanently deformed even after two painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries.” The model added that she’s “been left, as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable.’”
That same month, Evangelista filed a lawsuit against CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., for $50 million in damages, alleging that she had been unable to work after undergoing seven sessions from August 2015 to February 2016. She told PEOPLE that after noticing sudden weight gain, her doctor diagnosed her with Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH).
“I was like, ‘What the hell is that?’ And he told me no amount of dieting, and no amount of exercise was ever going to fix it,” Evangelista told the outlet. PAH is documented as a rare side effect of CoolSculpting that affects less than 1% of patients and causes the fatty tissues to thicken and expand, often making them not conducive to other cosmetic surgeries. “I loved being up on the catwalk. Now I dread running into someone I know,” she told the magazine through tears. “I can’t live like this anymore, in hiding and shame. I just couldn’t live in this pain any longer. I’m willing to finally speak.”
