She’s no stranger to plastic surgery, having gone under the knife for three boob jobs including a recent uplift last month, a Brazilian bum lift, liposuction, as well as numerous procedures to her face, but Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace readily admits her latest quest for perfection nearly cost her her life. The star, who found fame on Big Brother in 2006, reveals she resorted to buying slimming injections online in a bid to lose weight after being in a ‘dark place’ last year, but experienced her worst nightmare when the suspected counterfeit jabs left her with blurred vision, violent sickness and fearing she was at ‘death’s door.’
Aisleyne, 45, tells Closer, ‘Last year was so tough, I lost my best friend, Femi, who was as good as family, and my nephew in quick succession. The grief hit me hard and as a result, I barely left the house. I wasn’t going to the gym, I had low mental energy and I was eating my feelings. Instead of cooking, I was getting loads of takeaways; it would be 11pm and I’d be ordering cakes, pancakes and waffles. I put on two stone with stress because I was feeding my emotions with comfort food. After a while, I thought, “I need to do something here.”’
She adds, ‘I won’t lie and I’m not proud, but I bought Ozempic injections from the black market. I was in a desperate situation because I had a lot of weight that wasn’t shifting, and being in my 40s it’s harder. For the first three months, it was brilliant. I had no hunger pangs, I wasn’t eating rubbish and I had so much energy. I went down from a size 12 to an 8, it felt amazing!’
But alarm bells started ringing when, three months later, her health took a drastic turn. ‘I must have had a dodgy batch because my body reacted so badly. For three days, I was thought I was going to die. I was in my bed, waking up vomiting, suffering with diarrhoea and falling asleep again. At one point, I had three bags of vomit by my bedside.’ She adds, ‘Frighteningly, I started losing my vision, my eyes were going blurry, and I couldn’t even see my phone. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.’
Despite needing urgent medical attention, Aisleyne felt ‘too embarrassed’ to seek help. She admits, ‘There was a point without doubt where I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t even function. I wanted to go A&E, but I couldn’t drag myself there because I was too embarrassed to say what I’d done. I felt guilt over wasting NHS resources when I’d done this to myself. When I started to get my vision back, I called my best friend, he came round with electrolytes and coconut water, took one look at me and said, “What have you done to yourself?”’
Now the star wants to warn others not to follow suit. ‘My message is do not do it. I nearly died because of that sh*t. Your life is not worth losing over losing weight. Don’t cut corners with your health and don’t buy stuff off the black market because you don’t know what’s in it. It’s the most horrific health issue I’ve ever been through, and I will never do that again.’
Since her ordeal, the star is steadily gaining the weight she lost and is a size 10, but she admits she wasn’t prepared for the aftermath of ‘saggy skin’ – a common symptom after taking weight loss injections – and has resorted to surgery in an attempt to fix it. She explains, ‘I looked like a deflated balloon everywhere, I didn’t recognise myself! With slimming injections, you lose weight so rapidly that the skin hasn’t had enough time to stretch back, and you end up looking older. I’ve had to have surgery because everything went saggy.’
And last month, Aisleyne, who is a G-cup, went under the knife to have the skin around her chin tightened and a breast uplift in a bid to feel more like herself again. She explains, ‘They took away so much excess skin I had around my chin and from my neck and basically lifted it all up. I’ve wanted my boobs done for a while because they looked like udders! I don’t mind a saggy natural boob, but when you have a big, old implant at the top, they looked like they were hanging. The surgeon talked me out of going bigger, and gave me an uplift which I’m happy with, but next year I’m definitely getting bigger implants! I’m from that era of glamour modelling and big boobs, it’s not for everyone, but I love that pin-up, Jessica Rabbit look.’
And just last year Aisleyne revealed she was cyber-dating a 29-year-old US basketball player, and with her new-found confidence, she says she’s still on the horizon for love. She laughs, ‘I’m going to the US this year to meet him at last, but there are a couple of other guys I’m talking to in America – I’m just going to let the best man win. Let’s see what happens – I’m ready to be dated, wined and dined!’