Linda Evangelista returns to the cover of Vogue after surgery, but admits: “It’s not my real life chin and neck”

Away from the limelight and magazine covers for years, supermodel Linda Evangelista returned to work after surgery that she says left her “forever disfigured.” And the comeback is not discreet: Linda, 57, stars on the September cover of British Vogue, the magazine’s biggest annual issue. In the interview she confronts the ghost of the aesthetic procedure, recognizing that the photographs do not reflect real life.

In July, the model posted a behind-the-scenes photo from the production on Instagram, showing her wearing duct tape to remove skin from her face, chin, and neck. These ties, as well as her neck and hair, are hidden in the photographs now released for the Vogue edition. In the interview she acknowledges: “Not my real life chin or neck. And I can’t walk around with duct tape and rubber bands everywhere.”

Linda talks about the cosmetic surgery that left her “disfigured” and the depression she fell into when the results far exceeded her expectations. “I’m trying to love myself as I am”, he says. But isn’t this statement a contradiction to the photos produced and not very true to reality? “I always think that we are here to create fantasies. We are creating dreams. I think it is allowed. Also, all my insecurities are resolved in these pictures, so I get to do what I love to do.”

It was in September of last year that Linda Evangelista, the protagonist of countless magazine covers and catwalks in the 80s and 90s, broke the silence about her absence and explained the adverse reaction she had. On Instagram at the time, she admitted that she was “how the media” “described” her: “unrecognizable“.

The supermodel underwent an aesthetic procedure called CoolSculpting, which involves freezing body fat to reduce it. But the operation will have “done the opposite of what was promised.” Linda developed a rare adverse reaction called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH), a possible side effect that she claims she was not aware of.

In fact, in the Vogue interview, she goes so far as to say that if she’d known the procedure could jeopardize her livelihood and leave her depressed, she wouldn’t have done it. Ella Linda also says that she was motivated by publicity and her own vanity. “These CoolSculpting ads were running on CNN, MSNBC over and over, asking, Do you like what you see in the mirror? They were talking to me.

The model sued the company responsible for the procedure, Zeltiq Estética. The lawsuit was filed last month after the parties reached a settlement, but the amount of damages was not disclosed.

Next month, Linda Evangelista will once again be the protagonist in the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the famous Italian brand Fendi’s baguette bag. The model had already been interviewed for People magazine, in February of this year, about the “nightmare” of surgery, but it was not a fashion production, like Vogue’s.