Supermodel Linda Evangelista has filed a new $50 million-plus lawsuit against ZELTIQ Aesthetics, accusing the company of "destroying her quality of life and her career."
Evangelista claims she has been left "brutally deformed" as a result of ZELTIQ's failure to caution consumers about the potential harmful side effects of its CoolSculpting cosmetic procedure.
In an Instagram post, the 56-year-old Canadian model -- one of the most popular celebrities on magazine covers and runways in the 1990s -- said she had undergone the cosmetic procedure to reduce fat in 2016.
"I have been left, as the media would say, 'unrecognizable'," Evangelista told her 900,000 followers on Instagram. She said it was the reason she had stayed out of public view.
In the lawsuit, Evangelista claims ZELTIQ "is on the hook" for negligence, products liability, violation of warranty, and multiple types of fraud, in relation to the company's "deceptive acts" and practices and misleading advertising, The Fashion Law disclosed.
Evangelista said that ZELTIQ's procedure did the opposite of what it promised, and that she suffered a rare side effect called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which causes swelling in areas that were treated.
The non-surgical procedure, which has become popular in recent years, uses cold temperatures to trim down fat in certain areas of the body.
The procedure is supposed to freeze and kill the cells in fat deposits so the body can get rid of them.
She went on to say that she had undergone two "painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries" after the slimming procedure resulted in an opposite effect.
"The surgery hasn't only destroyed my livelihood, it has also sent me into a cycle of depression and sadness... In the process I have become a recluse" BBC quoted the model as saying.
"With this lawsuit, I'm moving forward to rid myself of shame, and going public with my story," Evangelista said in statement on Instagram, Thursday.
Evangelista said she is now unemployable as a model and has not earned any income from her career since 2016.
ZELTIQ Aesthetics, parent company AbbVie and a division of Allergan Aesthetics, did not return a call for comment.
