Linda Evangelista attends the Kering Foundation Second Annual Caring for Women Dinner in September 2023.Photo:Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Kering
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Kering
Linda Evangelistano longer blames herself for the aftermath of her CoolSculpting procedures.
The 58-year-old Canadian model has previously spoken about the “fat-freezing” treatment — which had been promoted as a noninvasive liposuction alternative — that she says left her"permanently deformed" and “brutally disfigured.“Now, in a new interview withThe Sunday Times, Evangelista has revealed that she’s “not hard on myself any longer” after undergoing sessions from August 2015 to February 2016 and later settling a lawsuit for anundisclosed amount.
“How people feel about me still bothers me a little bit, but it used to bother me a lot. I know now that I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “For the longest time I thought I did.”
“I’m not completely rid of it, but I work hard at getting rid of the guilt and the shame,” she added. “And I’m not letting it ruin my life. I wouldn’t have stayed locked up if I’d known how many people cared.”
Linda Evangelista attends the Fendi Spring Summer 2024 fashion show in September 2023.Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images for Fendi
Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images for Fendi
The fashion icon eventually sued Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc. for $50 million in damages after alleging that she was unable to work after being diagnosed with paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH). The rare complication of the FDA-cleared procedure left her with bulges on her body. The lawsuit was settled in July 2022.
“I don’t look in the mirror,” Evangelista toldThe Sunday Times. “My son will say to me sometimes, ‘You might want to know that you have a pimple on your chin.’ And I’m like, what? But life is better without mirrors.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Evangelista — who is mother to17-year-old Augustin James— also opened up to the outletabout being atwo-time breast cancer survivor, as she was diagnosed in both December 2018 and July 2020.
As she explained, her greatest goal is “to stay alive,” but she doesn’t want to complain. “When I hear other people’s stories, I think, ‘Oh God, I have no right to complain,'” she said.
“I hope I can shed myself of some of the shame and help other people who are in the same situation as me,” she said in a 2022 interview. “That’s my goal.”
A representative for CoolSculpting told PEOPLE in a statement at the time that the procedure was “well studied with more than 100 scientific publications and more than 11 million treatments performed worldwide” and that rare side effects “continue to be well-documented” for patients and health care providers.
source: people.com
