Linda Evangelista is back on the glossies.
The OG supermodel features on the cover of the September 2022 issue of British Vogue, marking her first fashion magazine cover in a decade.
Evangelista, 57, went into hiding for five years after she claimed she was “brutally disfigured” by a botched CoolSculpting procedure. In recent months, she has opened up about the experience, sharing the first photos of her face and body — and last month she made her triumphant return to fashion with a Fendi campaign.
“I couldn’t live in that pain any longer,” she told British Vogue in the interview. “I knew I had to change something, and the only change was to tell my truth.”
Although she has since filed the lawsuit against CoolSculpting parent company Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc. settled for a cool $50 million, the damage done is permanent, both physical and mental.
“If I had known that side effects can be you lose your livelihood and you get so depressed that you hate yourself…” she told Vogue with tears in her eyes, “I wouldn’t have taken that risk.”
The model described the aftermath of the damage as she was desperate to suppress the increased fat cells and “protruding” areas of the face and body that were affected; she tried liposuction twice and resorted to restricting food to try to lose the weight. Evangelista even tried to hide her mutilation from her 15-year-old son, Augustin.
“Am I mentally healed? Absolutely not,” she said, adding that she won’t look in the mirror and no one will touch her again.
And despite her public return to fashion lately, the star said it’s not quite a full comeback as she still needs to be almost completely covered up to feel comfortable.
“I miss my job so much, but honestly, what can I do? It won’t be easy,” she says. “You’re not going to see me in swimsuits, that’s for sure. It will be hard to find a job with things sticking out of me; without retouching, or squeezing things, or sticking or compressing or cheating things…”
Indeed before the photo shoot, the model makes it clear that legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath sculpted and pulled back her face with tape and elastics.
And while she admitted that she “can’t walk around” with face tape in her day-to-day life, it makes her feel more comfortable in front of the camera that way. She said, “You know what, I’m trying to love myself just the way I am.”