6 Celebs Who Went Under The Knife Illegally

For a few stars, they ended up turning to providers who weren’t licensed or were trying out treatments that weren’t approved by the FDA. These under the table procedures came with major risks -- and although all these stars made it through, it was definitely a dangerous choice.

Early in her career, Nicki Minaj admits she felt a pressure to conform to certain beauty standards that ended up landing her in a scary situation. Looking back, Nicki says she faced a lot of online hate and was around other musicians like Lil Wayne who were always talking about women with big butts. Nicki eventually felt that she needed to look like those other women who were the “muses” of the musicians she looked up to.

“All I would hear them talking about is big butts, and I didn't feel complete or good enough -- good as those girls because I'm like, ‘Oh my God, this is what you're supposed to look like in the rap culture,’ and I don't look like that,” Nicki said in an interview with Joe Budden.

She added, “I had ass shots, which till this day, I realize, even what I did, and even with me not consulting with anyone to do something like that, how insane that was. Like, it’s not that you go to a doctor, a professional person. No, it’s some random person.”

Before Cardi B made it big, she says she had an unlicensed cosmetic procedure in a basement apartment in Queens. At the time, she was working as a stripper and thought that having a bigger butt would be more profitable for her -- so she paid a woman $800 to inject her butt with filler.

“They don’t numb your ass with anything. It was the craziest pain ever. I felt like I was gonna pass out. I felt a little dizzy. And it leaks for, like, five days,” Cardi told GQ in 2018. “But by the time I was gonna go get [a touch up], the lady got locked up ’cause she’s supposedly killed somebody…somebody died on her table.”

Several years later, she had surgery to remove the majority of her injections, telling fans, “All I’m going to say is that if you’re young, if you’re 19, 20, 21, and sometimes you’re too skinny, and you be like, ‘OMG, I don’t have enough fat to put in my ass,’ so you result to ass shots, don’t!”

Priscilla Presley was unknowingly treated by a phony plastic surgeon back in the early 2000s. She was scammed by a doctor named Daniel Serrano who claimed he had miracle injections that worked better than Botox. Instead, he was actually injecting women with industrial, low-grade silicone similar to what’s used to lubricate auto parts in Argentina, according to TMZ. He had smuggled the non-FDA approved drug into the U.S. and charged hundreds of dollars for the procedures.

“Priscilla Presley was one of many documented victims of Dr. Serrano. An investigation which uncovered his misconduct ultimately lead to his imprisonment. Ms. Presley dealt with this matter years ago, and everything is well,” her rep said in a statement in 2008.

Blac Chyna once underwent a cosmetic procedure that wasn’t performed by a licensed professional. Looking back, she says she received injections in her butt but doesn’t even know what the injections contained. When she had them removed years later, the surgery took eight hours.

"This is a regular person that’s doing it. They’re getting whatever it is substance that they’re doing and giving it to you. They’re not going to tell you, ‘Hey, you could possibly die,” she said of the initial procedure, adding that afterwards, “My rear end would get super inflamed, and it would get really, really hard and really hot. It was very scary.”

She later said, “I just want all the ladies out there to know: Do not get silicone shots. You can get sick, you can die, have complications, and all this other crazy stuff. Normally, my procedure would’ve taken four hours tops. My procedure took over 8.5 hours, y’all. Whatever that silicone mass -- whatever that was that was in my buttocks -- it kept clogging the machine, and breaking it.”

Influencer Gigi Gorgeous admits she once “experimented with silicone injections” that were administered by an unlicensed woman in hotel rooms in New York City. The secret procedures were given code names and were often referred to as “workouts.” Looking back, Gigi says that things immediately started feeling shady, with the woman bringing the silicon injections in a water bottle.

Gigi went on to say that there was “no rhyme or reason” to the injections and it was all quite painful. The injector then closed the holes with Super Glue and Band-Aids. Afterwards, Gigi had immediate regrets and attempted to squeeze out the silicone. Thankfully, she didn’t deal with any lasting effects.

“It’s something that I seriously, seriously regret. They can have major health effects. They can kill you. There are just so many scary things that can happen with them, and thank God that I'm alive and able to tell my story and warn people,” she said in a YouTube video.

K. Michelle admits she once got illegal silicone butt injections that she ended up having to get removed years later when she started experiencing strange symptoms. After dealing with pain in her legs and back as well as fatigue and headaches, doctors discovered that the silicon was migrating down her legs.

​​”[The injector] wasn’t a doctor -- it was black market, it was these ‘hydrogel’ injections -- that’s what they were being called. When I found out my favorite rapper did it, that's when I decided, ‘I’m getting it done,’” she told People.

A doctor attempted to remove the silicon with liposuction but it ended up making it spread. Several weeks after the removal procedure, she wound up in the hospital while on tour. It took three more procedures and two blood transfusions to get rid of the silicone -- but she was left with lumps and disfigured legs.