As Katie Price, 46, recovers from her sixth facelift, we talk to expert surgeons about the safety and ethics of doctors performing so many facelifts on someone so young

Katie Price is no stranger to the spotlight – or the surgeon’s scalpel. And at the age of 46, the TV star recently had her sixth facelift in Turkey. 

The mum-of-five says she’s happy with her new face, but it did leave her “struggling to see” and “feeling sore” during her recovery from surgery earlier this month.

However, the rigmarole of flying home wrapped in bandages did not faze her, as she has also had 17 breast augmentations, eyelifts, a nose job and countless other ‘tweakments’ since bursting onto the scene as a fresh-faced 17-year-old model. 

Katie is a bonafide national treasure and so naturally her penchant for surgery has sparked concern among fans, who fear she is going overboard and putting herself at risk by travelling abroad for operations.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour in March this year, Katie said: “I don’t have surgery to look younger. I don’t know what it is, but I definitely have a relationship with the surgery, I think, about not feeling probably good enough, or needy, or not very pretty.” Katie – who has spoken about having ADHD and PTSD – has also experienced some nasty complications.

In 2017, a ‘botched’ facelift needed to be corrected, after the threads that were stitched under her temples led to agonising skin-puckering beneath her eyes. And, after leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2015, she was seen clutching her chest, after revealing that her breast reduction surgery had gone wrong.

Considering the amount of surgery she has had and her vulnerability, should surgeons still be giving her cosmetic ops?

London-based Dr Jeya Prakash gave Katie her first two boob jobs when she shot to fame as glamour model Jordan. “I’ve known Katie since 1996,” he says. “The first time she came in wanting a breast augmentation, which I did, she was happy. She came back wanting another one, which I did. But then she came a third time, and I said no, because she seemed to have an addiction to surgery with what she wanted to do. She’s a small, petite lady. I always tell her that a squirrel shouldn’t have elephant breasts.”

Dr Prakash, who was concerned about the star’s love of surgery, also denied her a facelift when she came into his office in 2022. “I said she doesn’t need a facelift. Then she went to other places where people didn’t look after her health, they looked after her image. Health is very important.” He expressed concern over reports of Katie’s blurred vision after her most recent facelift, adding: “That’s wrong because the muscles that moved the eyelid should not be disturbed.”

While facelifts do not last forever, Dr Prakash also recommends 15 years to be left between each. “I have one patient, she’s 80 years old and she’s had three facelifts,” he says. “The first one I did when she was 50. The second one I did when she was 65, then when she was 80 – three months ago. She is fit and healthy. The health of the patient is the most important thing. Ideally, a patient would spread out their lifts 15 years apart to give their body the chance to recover and heal.”

Dr Julien De Silva also warns against having multiple procedures while still young. He tells The Mirror : “There should not be a need to have more than two facelift procedures in a young woman in her mid-forties. A quick old-fashioned facelift procedure may be a quick fix and take less than a couple of hours, however it will not be long-lasting. Undergoing a procedure with a reputable surgeon, the facelift should last towards 10 years for the majority of patients.”

As well as the risk posed by multiple anaesthetics, each facelift creates more scar tissue, which can result in tension that stretches the skin, according to Dr De Silva. “It can create issues such as pixie ear shapes,” he says. “Each surgery carries a further risk or more noticeable scars and other complications, including stretching a motor nerve (known as temporary facial asymmetry, with the appearance of a stroke) as well as common complications such as haematomas (the pooling of blood under the skin).”

A patient’s state of mind should always be considered before performing procedures like facelifts, says Dr De Silva, who adds: “Personally, I would not be advocating surgery in an individual who has undergone multiple procedures with well-publicised issues in her private life. “I would suggest an evaluation to exclude body dysmorphia to ensure that any procedure is truly in her best interest.”

With the rise of cheap medical hotspots overseas – more than 150,000 Brits travelled to Turkey for cosmetic procedures in 2022 – some UK surgeons are warning of the dangers patients face in going abroad. “While places like Turkey offer affordable cosmetic procedures, the quality of care varies,” suggests plastic surgeon Mr Amer Hussain at Pall Mall Medical. “The heat in these locations can cause excessive sweating, which interferes with healing and increases the risk of infection.”

Critical follow-up appointments are also harder to schedule, because of the distance, meaning the lack of accessible aftercare can lead to complications like infections in the wound or delayed healing. Dr Prakash adds: “People should not just choose to do a procedure abroad because it’s cheap. The most important thing is the quality of the surgeon, the place, and the facilities. And they should not be combining three or four surgeries – it is too dangerous.”

Like many UK surgeons, Dr Prakash gives mental health questionnaires to patients and conducts evaluations, which often don’t take place in destinations like Turkey. He says: “Katie is addicted to having so many surgeries, but I am not blaming her. I am blaming the surgeons that keep on doing it.”

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Source: Los Angeles Times (edited)