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“Love & Hip Hop” star Karlie Redd isn’t looking much like herself these days, say fans. The reason being, they speculate online, is extensive plastic surgery.
Redd is best known for appearing as a main cast member of VH1’s reality show “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta” since its premiere in June 2012. She currently plays a recurring role on the soap opera “Saints and Sinners,” which appears on Bounce TV. A singer as well, her latest single, “Werk,” was released on Aug. 12 and made the Billboard charts.
Redd recently went to her Instagram Live to refute claims that she had cosmetic surgery on her face, BET reported.
“Let’s talk about makeup. Let’s talk real s**t. You know, because everybody’s talking s**t about my face,” Redd said in posted the video. She also introduced viewers to her makeup artist of nearly 10 years, Tim.
“Let’s keep it real. I got lip injections, and Tim is always getting on me, like, ‘Stop doing the lip injections or whatever.’ So, I’m going to stop because everyone is always talking s**t about my face.”
She continued, “That’s all I got on my face. I have not had surgery, but I always make Time to do my makeup with my eyes slanted. […] That is my thing; make my eyes catty.”
Redd did admit to having gotten lip injections in the past; she doesn’t intend to do it again.
She also addressed claimed she had gotten plastic surgery done on her nose.
Karlie further explained, “My nose has always been straight. Look at my daughter’s nose; you can tell we come from a family of straight noses.”
Her makeup artist weighed in, saying, “No nose job.”
In 2020, Redd admitted she turned to Dr. Simon Ourian in Beverly Hills for his popular Cool Laser treatments, which claims to smooth wrinkles, improve the appearance scars, pigmentation.
Despite Redd’s latest denials, Black America wasn’t buying it.
“She completely ruined herself,” tweeted Nev.
“Nahhh this can’t be her,” tweeted Sommy 8.7M ²².
“Nooo. Dawg. Ain’t no wayyyyy that’s karlie!!,” tweeted Aiyara.
Plastic surgery is on the rise, particularly among Black American women. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 11 percent of women admitted that they were open to receiving cosmetic enhancements.
From 2005 to 2013, the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found that Black patients increased by 56 percent. In 2016, 8 percent of all plastic surgery procedures were for Black patients, The Atlantic reported.
There are surgeons, say experts, who target Black women and use influencers for promotion, a BBC investigation found.
The investigation has found women in the UK, mainly Black women, who traveled to Turkey for cosmetic surgery, were left with negative life-changing conditions by a company that received glowing reviews from a social media influencer in return for free cosmetic procedures, the BBC reported.
Reality TV show star NeNe Leakes, 54, has often promoted plastic surgery. And he’s doing it again. He announced to her followers that she was getting liposuction and a Brazilian butt lift on her “surgery journey.” The former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” revealed she recently went under the knife for a “professional, mini Brazilian butt lift” and liposuction, Page Six reported.
She also said she was being named the ambassador of Dr. Stanley A. Okoro’s Georgia Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery center.
“I’m only looking to fix my problem areas,” Leakes said in an Instagram video.
”So, we called in a ‘professional, mini BBL.’ And I love it. So, I’m gonna take you on this journey with me and Dr. Okoro to fix some of my problem areas and become you.”
Leakes has previously undergone two nose jobs and breast augmentation.
In a second clip, she took her followers through the process of having the procedures done at Dr. Okoro’s offices.
“I did it! I got a ‘Profession BBL’ with Dr. Okoro!” she wrote. “Follow my surgery journey with Dr. Okoro at Georgia Plastic.
“I’m almost ready to show off my new snatched look, but I want you to be snatched too!” she said and added that her fans could get $100 off their consultation with her promo code.
According to an article in The Washington Post, there is a hidden anti-Black history behind the Brazilian butt lift.
“While this figure is viewed as highly desirable across the globe today, the BBL procedure and its connection to its namesake in Brazil has a long history rooted in anti-Blackness. We can locate the fixation with the BBL and the body it promotes at least as far as back as the abolition of slavery in Latin America’s largest country,” Daniel F. Silva, associate professor of Luso-Hispanic studies and director of the Black studies program at Middlebury College and author of the new book “Embodying Modernity: Race, Gender, and Fitness Culture in Brazil,” wrote in The Washington Post.
Plastic surgery wasn’t also used to “whiten” up Brazil, it was also used to hyper-sexualize the Black Brazilian woman, the mixed-race Brazilian woman– or the White fantasy of her, Silva wrote. And this meant re-shaping and exaggerating her butt.
Photos: Left, Karlie Redd attends the National Film And TV Awards in Los Angeles, Dec. 3, 2019. (Faye Sadou/MediaPunch /IPX) Right, Karlie Redd breaks down in tears after her song “Werk” charts on Billboard (screenshot from 9MagTV, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_gMkHAYPic)
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