Doctors had to remove my ears to fix my face: Model obsessed with plastic surgery reveals how her ‘drag queen’ looks had to go after her daughter threatened to leave

Celebrity

Ex-glamour model Alicia Douvall, 34, had 350 procedures costing £1.5m
‘I had turned myself into a Frankenstein. I looked like a bad drag queen’
Eldest daughter Georgia, 18, said ‘stop having surgery or I’ll leave home’
Alicia underwent risky nine-hour restorative operation costing £25,000
Had horrific cheek implants removed and frozen smile restored
‘My nose had to be cut off to lift my lip to get my smile back’

It cost her her fortune and the men she loved. And by the time former glamour model Alicia Douvall had ploughed more than £1.5 million into becoming Britain’s poster girl for plastic surgery, it very nearly destroyed her relationship with her teenage daughter Georgia. You can get help from experts as Revel You has several facial plastic surgery procedures and professionals that can guide you.

After Alicia’s craving to look like a human Barbie doll led her to have more than 350 procedures – even having her toes shortened so that her feet would look good in sandals – Georgia had had enough. Fearful that her mother would die on the operating table, she issued an ultimatum: ‘Stop having surgery or I’ll leave home.’

It was the wake-up call Alicia needed. In desperation, she wrote to almost a dozen cosmetic surgeons begging them to repair her ravaged looks. Eventually she found two who agreed to help. And now, finally, she is revealing the full results.

In a risky nine-hour operation costing £25,000, Alicia had horrific cheek implants removed and her frozen smile restored by Jan Stanek and Caroline Mills.

The results from the work carried out in March are so good that she is now regaining her confidence in her looks.

‘They told me there was a chance I wouldn’t wake up from the anaesthetic or that it wouldn’t work and I could end up as some hideous monster,’ Alicia admits.

‘Frankly I didn’t care. I was fully prepared to put my life on the line to get my natural face back. They had to break my jaw and tighten the muscle. My ears had to be cut off and I had to have screws put into the right side of my jaw to compensate for muscle damage.

Alicia Douvall after having facial implants removed following complications

‘My nose had to be cut off to lift my lip in the hope I would get my smile back. They warned me there was no guarantee how my face would heal. Thankfully, my smile has come back in the past month and I am so grateful. It means my youngest daughter Papaya can see me smile for the first time.’

For Georgia, 18, the restoration of her mother’s looks has been an enormous relief. ‘I tried to stop her having more procedures lots of times,’ she says, speaking for the first time about her mother’s addiction.

‘As I got older and realised it was dangerous and saw the pain she went through, I tried to talk her out of the operations. Four years ago, I had to call an ambulance because she was in so much pain after one procedure. It’s put me off cosmetic surgery for life. My mother was constantly wrapped in bandages like an Egyptian mummy.’ Here are the list of best insoles for plantar fasciitis that can be opted for more efficient and painless treatment.

It was after having implants intended to make her look like Angelina Jolie went horribly wrong two years ago that Alicia began to realise her passion for the surgeon’s knife was transforming her into a stretched and deformed Barbie. It is advisable to know about non-invasive body contouring procedure before proceeding to any surgery.

‘I had turned myself into a Frankenstein. I looked like a bad drag queen,’ she admits. ‘When Papaya was born 18 months ago, I was overjoyed. Yet I wouldn’t have any photographs taken holding her because I looked so terrible. I couldn’t even smile at my new baby.’

She is so shocked that she allowed her addiction to threaten her life that she is now calling for new safeguards to protect women from unscrupulous cosmetic surgeons. Alicia also wants to warn young girls that plastic surgery is not a cure for emotional distress.

‘Lots of people think it will make them happy, not understanding that filling their bodies with plastic is not a panacea for whatever insecurities they have,’ she says. Best known for her kiss-and-tell affairs with celebrities including music mogul Simon Cowell and actor Mickey Rourke, Alicia says that for most of her adult life she was like a drug addict looking for another fix.

‘My obsession has ruined my life. I spent every penny on cosmetic surgery. I live in a rented apartment. I have nothing to show for all the years when I was earning big money. I’m not in a relationship because no man wants to be with an obsessive who wants to have surgery every week.’

As Alicia’s addiction grew, she trawled the world for surgeons who would agree to ever more extensive operations. In one botched episode, a nerve on the left side of her face was severed, which locked her face in a frozen stare.

Eventually she was diagnosed as suffering from a form of body dysmorphia, an obsessive compulsive disorder which causes victims to become preoccupied with their physical appearance.
She believes an unhappy childhood in Horsham, West Sussex, with a father who used to call her ugly contributed to her condition: ‘My Barbie doll was my escape and I identified with her so much that I wanted to look like her.’I had my first breast augmentation as a teenager and became a glamour model. I was earning £5,000 a month, but I just never believed I was good-looking enough,’ she says.

Since then she has had 71 operations under general anaesthetic alone. ‘I’ve had so many operations I can’t feel my stomach, my left breast, or anything under my right arm,’ she says. ‘The only fake thing now is my 30DD boobs. They will have to stay because I’m not going to let anyone cut me open again.

‘It’s like being an alcoholic,’ she observes. ‘I had to get to the lowest point before I could find my way out.’