Danniella Westbrook has made a startling revelation about her face as she prepares for additional surgery. The former EastEnders actress, aged 52, has been undergoing multiple reconstructive procedures after drug abuse left her with a distorted appearance.
Six more surgeries planned
Now, Danniella has confirmed she will require six more rounds of surgery over the next 18 months. Speaking to Vanessa Feltz on her Channel 5 show on Monday, Danniella said she has already undergone "umpteen surgeries." She told the host: "I think I'm coming up to surgery number six at the moment. Five or six will be this Thursday. So it's quite scary."
Bone loss and reconstruction
She went on: "I've had quite a few surgeries to rebuild and refix my face. I think since I got older, the osteoporosis has set in on my bones." Danniella revealed one side of her face does not have "any bone at all." She continued: "So they've got to rebuild all my bones. At the moment it's filler, but they've really got to do a metal bone."
As she continued explaining the situation, the presenter asked how many different procedures it will take. Danniella confessed she will have to undergo around six more operations after her latest one. She explained: "The next one they're doing is like a hair lip reversal because my lip's so far up now where it's pulling up that way. So I've got to do that from the inside, cut a flap from the inside of my cheek, flip it round and over and then bring it in from there and put it through because I don't want the scarring on the outside of my face."
"It's another 18 months of surgery after surgery after surgery. About every two and a half, three months I'm in surgery," she added.
Struggling with self-image
She candidly confessed to hating how she looks in the mirror, revealing she hates looking at her own reflection. "Even now, I've just recently had to have a facelift to realign both sides of my face because they were so wonky," she said. "Just to get this nose in a certain position so we can start working on that, not for anything cosmetically beautifying, but no, I still hate looking in the mirror."
The actress's septum collapsed following years of drug abuse in 1999. She has been on a long road to reconstruct her face. The Sam Mitchell star has been mercilessly trolled online for her appearance.
Previous health issues
Danniella had previously explained to the Mirror that she almost died due to a botched operation. At the time, she suffered a severe bout of osteoporosis, a health condition that weakens bones, leaving her with screws for teeth. "They need to take a piece of bone out of my skull and put a plate into my face but they've got nothing to stick the plate on at the minute because the bone's not strong enough," she said back in 2018. "The bone hadn't closed around the screws so they took me out of the house three times to a dentist, which they're not meant to, because the pain was so bad."
