UGLY TRUTH

Woman Says TV Plastic Surgery Makeover Almost Killed Her

“I came in because I have self-esteem issues, and now you’re going to make me compare myself to everybody on a national stage?”

Plastic surgery patients from one of reality television’s most infamous makeover shows are revealing what they say really happened after the cameras stopped rolling.

More than two decades after Fox’s The Swan put women through extreme cosmetic transformations, former contestants are revisiting the experience in Hulu’s new documentary The Swan: Behind the Mirror, from Emmy-nominated director Erin Lee Carr.

The 2004 series took women it branded “ugly ducklings” and put them through 90 grueling days of plastic surgery, dental work, punishing workouts, and strict dieting, before finally revealing their radically altered appearances.

The show assembled a team of plastic surgeons, dentists, trainers, and therapists who oversaw the drastic transformations. Among them was plastic surgeon Dr. Terry Dubrow, who later became one of the stars of E!’s Botched.

There was one catch: The women were forbidden from seeing themselves during the process.

Contestants lived in apartments stripped of mirrors and other reflective surfaces—even CDs were reportedly confiscated—and had to ask permission to leave using Nextel radios. Some came to call the setup “Pretty Prison.”

Kristy Garza, a Season 1 contestant featured in the documentary, which premieres Sept. 29, said she began questioning the experience almost immediately.

“My alarm bells started going off when we got to the apartments in Marina Del Rey and they showed us that all the reflective surfaces were covered,” she told Variety.

The women were reportedly expected to work out six days a week, sometimes twice a day, while recovering from multiple procedures and following diets that reportedly ranged from 800 to 1,200 calories a day.

Then came another surprise.

Contestants say they were not told until after surgery that they would eventually compete against one another in a beauty pageant.

“I came in because I have self-esteem issues and now you’re going to make me compare myself to everybody on a national stage while I’m still building myself up?” Garza said.

When the show premiered in April 2004, the Los Angeles Times called the concept possibly reality television’s “most morbid iteration” of the makeover craze. That same month, Dr. Rod Rohrich, then president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, criticized turning cosmetic surgery into a competition.

“We don’t have contests,” he told the newspaper. “That to me is over the line.”

Still, viewers tuned in. The premiere attracted about 15 million people, and the first season averaged roughly 9 million viewers.

The documentary also revisits some of the show’s darker allegations.

Season 2 contestant Kari Bravata says she nearly died during surgery and still does not know exactly what happened after cameras were removed from the operating room.

“I almost died for reality television,” she says in the docuseries.

Season 2 pushed the format further by secretly casting Bravata’s sister, Gina, against her. Producers reportedly gave the sisters code names to preserve the twist, while Gina’s contract threatened a $5 million penalty if she revealed she was participating.

Bravata also learned while making the documentary that plastic surgeon Dr. Randal Haworth says nude pre-surgery photographs of contestants were intended for a coffee-table book that was never published.

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“It was a shock and it makes me feel sick,” Bravata said. “We were told we had to do it and I remember crying in the middle of it.”

Carr said the show’s treatment of contestants was particularly troubling given the women it chose to cast.

“They were not looking for people that had their life together,” Carr said. “They were looking for people who were, in my mind, vulnerable.”

The Swan lasted only two seasons, but for some of its contestants, the experience followed them long after the show ended.

More than 20 years later, Garza said revisiting what happened alongside the other women finally helped her process an experience she thought she had already put behind her.

“The documentary has been the most healing I’ve been able to do in the past 22 years,” she said. “I didn’t even know how much I needed this.”

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Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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