When Kelsey Salmon began posting videos about her eyelid being bitten off by an eyelash technician’s Chihuahua on TikTok, the response was supportive. Now that her story has gained widespread media attention, Salmon is seeing the negative comments begin. She now claims Chihuahua owners are complaining to her, accusing her of giving the dog breed a bad name.
“Everyone who owns a Chihuahua is coming at me saying that I’m trying… I started this whole thing so people would hate Chihuahuas like I’m coming after them as a breed,” Salmon said in a new interview with TMZ Saturday. Salmon insisted this was not true, adding that she believes any breed of dog has the “potential to be aggressive,” not just Chihuahuas. The negative comments have begun taking a “mental toll” on Salmon, who said she already deals with depression and anxiety.
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“This has just… increased it by a lot,” she said. “I just have to find myself… like try to take deep breaths because, by the end of the day, I’m basically hyperventilating from having so much anxiety throughout the day of people constantly coming at me over something that I didn’t even ask for.”
The comments she shared with TMZ accused her of everything from badmouthing Chihuahuas to making up the story. “You only saying Chihuahua instead of Chihuahua Mix [because] a lot of hate going towards the bred, which already gets hate because of bad owners,” one comment read. “Maybe instead of hating the dog, you should hate its owner for raising it like that.” Another person claimed the injury “doesn’t look anything remotely close to a dog bite.”
Salmon also provided an update on her eyelid situation. She said she still has the original eyelid that was town off attached to her face, but if it “dies,” the doctors will have to remove it, she told TMZ. The doctors would have to use a “skin graft from my under eye… it sounds super weird,” she said.
Salmon told TMZ she still has not heard from the eyelash technician at the center of this situation. Her family has contacted a lawyer, but they have not decided if they will sue. In the meantime, she established a GoFundMe page to raise $15,000 for medical bills. Unfortunately, only $200 was raised in the five days since the fund was established.
The 23-year-old Salmon went to have her eyelashes done in May before her birthday and a trip to Hawaii. She wound up using a technician she found on Instagram. After the job was done, she claims the technician’s dog lunged at her, pulling her entire eyelid off. Salmon began sharing frequent updates on her eyelid on TikTok before she did interviews with TMZ and The Sun. “I have dogs myself and I love them to death,” she told TMZ in a previous interview. “If anything were to happen to them, I would be heartbroken.”
