‘The Doctors’ Producers Sued Over Botched Implant Removal That Left Fitness Influencer Disfigured

Fitness influencer Jenelle Butler is suing the producers of the popular daytime show The Doctors after she was left with scars and disfigurement following a medical procedure. She’s suing for negligent selection, negligent breach of voluntary undertaking and loss of consortium. Butler announced to her followers that she wanted to remove butt implants she got back in 2010 calling the choice “a young dumb decision” and became the “sole regret” she had about her body when she made the decision to remove them in efforts to set a good example for her followers.

The Doctors found out about this and invited her to the show. When she appeared as their guest, they surprised her by announcing that Miami-based plastic surgeon, Constantino Mendieta, offered to remove them for free. According to The Hollywood Reporter, her attorney Christopher Ridout wrote in the complaint, “She was uneasy about using a surgeon she had never heard of, and whose website did not show any before/after photographs of his gluteal-silicone-removal procedures.”

Butler claims she told the producers she preferred to use the doctor who she previously had a consultation with, Alberto Gallerani, but they told her it wouldn’t be free unless it was with Mendieta.

“The Stage 29 producer responded that the procedure would only be free of charge if Jenelle Butler went with Dr. Mendieta. In reliance on the reputation of The Doctors, Jenelle Butler reluctantly agreed to place herself in the care of a surgeon whom she had never met in-person,” the complaint explained in further detail.

So she moved forward with the procedure in January 2018 — which was filmed by a local crew — but claims she never saw the footage. Gallerani testified that Mendieta failed to perform critical steps such as viewing MRI films before the surgery, as well as, not marking where each incision would be prior to the surgery itself.

“If Dr. Mendieta had performed the surgery over the course of several sessions, with an appropriately conservative approach to the incisions, Jenelle Butler would not have had to receive blood transfusions, suffered the extensive tissue-death, experienced the agony of dealing with those deep and open wounds for months, or been left with such horrendous scarring and disfigurement,” her attorney wrote.

He noted that as a result of all the trauma, she became so “depressed to the point that she even contemplated suicide.”

Now, she’s blaming Stage 29 for not knowing, or potentially neglecting, the malpractice against Mendieta that lead to a patients death.