Botched or Not? Red Carpet Pile-On

Carey (00:00):
Well, also my mom is 68. She always says her and Madonna are the same age.

 

Dr. Chang (00:04):
All right. All right.

 

Jackie (00:06):
We should ask her her opinion.

 

Dr. Chang (00:07):
Special guest. Come on, mom.

 

Carey (00:09):
My mom just took the more conservative route.

 

Dr. Chang (00:14):
That's what she should be for Halloween.

 

Carey (00:15):
Madonna?

 

Dr. Chang (00:16):
That's it. We got to get her the fishnet stockings outfit.

 

Carey (00:18):
Oh my God. Bring her into the office.

 

Dr. Chang (00:20):
That's it. You are listening to Secret Services where we discuss the procedures nobody admits to, but everyone's curious about. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Chang.

 

(00:34):
She woke up.

 

Jackie (00:36):
Our little angel.

 

Carey (00:38):
She's ready to talk about some BBLs.

 

Jackie (00:40):
Yeah. All right guys, welcome to Secret Services. We have our little angel here with us.

 

Carey (00:48):
Say hi, Annie.

 

Dr. Chang (00:49):
She's good for the camera.

 

Carey (00:50):
She loves the camera.

 

Dr. Chang (00:53):
All right. So what are we getting into, Jackie?

 

Jackie (00:57):
All right. So three women, three red carpets in the same verdict from the internet. Something was done. One of them just won the biggest award of the night. One has a chronic illness she's been open about, and one has only ever talked about injectables. We'll get to that soon. All right. When a famous woman gets called botched online, how often is it actually surgery? How often is it lighting, styling, illness or medication?

 

Dr. Chang (01:21):
This is such a trigger word for me. I feel like people use this word botched. Now the show botched has been so popular. It just feels so insulting. The word botched to me feels like it's so malicious. The person, the doctor was trying to hurt the patient. So it's such a trigger word for me when somebody says that. Or somebody who was completely clueless doing the surgery.

 

Jackie (01:46):
Well, exactly. When I watched -

 

Dr. Chang (01:48):
Stop laughing at me.

 

Jackie (01:48):
When I watch botched, those patients, they're very far extreme ends of the plastic surgery spectrum. So then to say that about those people is one thing, but then to just be like, "Oh, I'm unhappy with my bleph," or something. I think to call just being unhappy with your own results botched is a big stretch. I think the term just gets tossed around a lot. Whereas the people on the show are like -

 

Carey (02:17):
Mutilated.

 

Jackie (02:18):
Exactly.

 

Carey (02:19):
Yeah.

 

Jackie (02:20):
They don't even look like regular humans anymore.

 

Carey (02:23):
And their body isn't functioning the way it should, essentially.

 

Jackie (02:28):
Yeah. It's affecting their daily life, not just mentally, but physically.

 

Dr. Chang (02:32):
Yeah. I think some of these people, it does affect their daily life, but that also says a lot about how they process their self-image and whatever happens. So it's just sort of how the vocabulary has changed a little bit. Sometimes I'm like, "This is not what this word means." And people just throw this word around like it means nothing. It means mutilated, right?

 

Jackie (02:53):
Yeah.

 

Dr. Chang (02:54):
But it's very different.

 

Jackie (02:56):
Well, and I think when everyone online is just critiquing people, you got to see, like they said, how often is it lighting styling? You got to see multiple photos of this person before you can start calling them out because they could just be having a bad day. We all have bad days. Maybe they had a bad makeup artist.

 

Carey (03:12):
Yeah. Maybe they had a little too much sodium or a little bit too much to drink tonight.

 

Jackie (03:16):
Yeah, exactly. They're swollen.

 

Dr. Chang (03:18):
Well, you were saying you had social media posts go viral and stuff. You were sort of saying that you couldn't really be an influencer because of how the comments are, right?

 

Jackie (03:28):
Oh, it's nonstop. It was just a stupid video that went viral.

 

Dr. Chang (03:33):
A million views.

 

Jackie (03:34):
But the people are just ruthless in the comments.

 

Dr. Chang (03:37):
People will say anything and it's hard not to react.

 

Jackie (03:41):
It's hard not to react. I can't imagine. I'm like also this is one post. I can't imagine me posting multiple times a day as an influencer and then getting bombarded with those comments all day, every day.

 

Dr. Chang (03:52):
Yeah, but I mean imagine it says something that has nothing to do with the post, just about how you look and like, oh, you look botched or whatever, or how come your eyes are botched or your lips are botched or something. You just be like, it's so personal.

 

Jackie (04:07):
It is, yeah. So the anonymous question of the week, I had my eyelids done eight months ago and I'm thrilled with them. Then someone I barely know commented botched on a photo I posted and now I can't stop zooming in. How do I tell if something's actually wrong or if I'm letting a stranger get in my head?

 

Carey (04:25):
Well, first off, I can't stand these people. The best is if you look at these nasty comments online of who's saying it. Who's saying them? Either the picture is not them or you click on the picture and you're like, okay, I'm getting cosmetic advice from you.

 

Jackie (04:45):
I loved these influencers that are fighting back. They'll literally screenshot that person's picture and be like, oh really? Or it'll be like, oh, that girl needs... Someone was saying Tate McCray needs a nose job and then someone blew up the picture of the lady saying it.

 

Carey (05:01):
It's like these little -

 

Jackie (05:02):
Who are you?

 

Carey (05:03):
What are they called?

 

Jackie (05:04):
Keyboard warriors.

 

Carey (05:05):
Yeah. Yeah. They think they can get away with it because they're behind a username that isn't attached to them, but it's just like, okay, you're just a miserable person wanting to bring others down. Because no happy person would get on there and be like, oh my God, botched eyelids.

 

Jackie (05:24):
Well, and I think an important part of this question is they wrote someone I barely know. This is not a loved one. This is not someone that you care about. You got to take it with a grain of salt.

 

Carey (05:37):
Right.

 

Dr. Chang (05:37):
Yeah. I think there's -

 

Carey (05:38):
Especially, she said she was thrilled with her eyelids.

 

Dr. Chang (05:41):
Right. I think that people have to recognize a couple of things. One, how you feel about your result is the most important thing, not how everybody else feels about your result. That's number one. And number two is when you put something on public forum or social media, you're exposing yourself for these comments and these judgments. So when they post, you have to understand how to interpret those comments. And if it's somebody you don't know or you have to have kind of thick skin and just feel like, you know what? Or turn the comments off. You don't care about the comments, just turn them off.

 

Carey (06:17):
Actually, I find those, when someone turns their comments off, I'm like, come on.

 

Jackie (06:22):
That's also a red flag.

 

Carey (06:24):
Yeah. Come on, we all want to see what they're saying.

 

Dr. Chang (06:28):
That gets out of your skin.

 

Carey (06:29):
Well, yeah, because I'm like, don't post if you can't handle, don't take the heat. Well, especially - What's the saying? Stay out of the kitchen.

 

(06:36):
kYeah. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Yeah.

 

Jackie (06:38):
I think it's also, especially if someone doesn't have comments turned off on every post and then you see a specific one, I'm immediately thinking, why did they turn the comments off on that post?

 

Dr. Chang (06:49):
Well, I mean, I think, is it Britney Spears? I think she's now turned comments off on all of her recent things because she's doing wild stuff and she sort of seems -

 

Carey (06:58):
Well, I think that's her team telling her you need to turn your comments. She's probably like, let the comments come.

 

Jackie (07:03):
Does she have a team? The team in her head.

 

Dr. Chang (07:07):
Team Britney.

 

Carey (07:07):
I know for a fact she does have a team.

 

Dr. Chang (07:10):
You're on the team. You're on team Brittany.

 

Carey (07:13):
Well, okay.

 

Dr. Chang (07:14):
But I mean for her, the comments would be probably pretty hateful, hurtful rather.

 

Carey (07:19):
Actually, people still love her. People are like, Britney, you're so great. Love you, Britney. Great dancers. But then of course you have the mean people too. But the other thing that gets me mad -

 

Dr. Chang (07:34):
Did you see the woman in Times Square with the knives? The AI. And then they had her dancing on the Britney Spears lobby. Oh, I think that's terrible. I think that woman was shot. She was. She was. But the memes where they replaced her with Britney Spears in her foyer in her house.

 

Carey (07:55):
Okay. The other thing that makes me mad about if you're going to be an influencer, you got to be able to handle the hate.

 

Jackie (08:02):
Because you're going to get it.

 

Carey (08:03):
The thing that makes me mad are the influencers that delete their hate comments.

 

Jackie (08:07):
I know.

 

Carey (08:07):
And embrace them, embrace the hate comments.

 

Jackie (08:10):
Embrace the hate.

 

Carey (08:11):
Okay.

 

Jackie (08:11):
Defend yourself.

 

Carey (08:12):
That's the only thing I have to say.

 

Jackie (08:13):
So this patient, at eight months, how close is eyelid surgery? How close is it bleph to seeing its final result? What's still settling?

 

Dr. Chang (08:22):
Yeah, eight months, I think it's pretty close. I think you're going to see a lot of the results. Depends on how extensive the surgery is. You're heading there. I mean, the amount of changes that you see, the majority of change, dramatic changes are in the first couple weeks to month. Then things start to really kind of taper out. And yes, there's still small degrees of swelling, scars that are lightening, redness that's fading, swelling that comes and goes may start normalizing a little bit. So things do get more normal and you're still on the healing journey, but a lot of the results are starting to really look more normal. So I think she's approaching a final result.

 

Jackie (08:59):
Right. And so zooming in on your own, I think if I zoom in on any photo of me, I can find something wrong. I think that this lady says she's eight months, she's near a final result. She's thrilled with them. I think you got to listen, that's when you got to listen to yourself inside and just shake off the hate comments. It's one thing if this girl was iffy about her eyelids and then someone said that to be like, all right, maybe I should say something to my surgeon. But I think you can't let these people get to you.

 

Dr. Chang (09:31):
Yeah. I think that some people say, "Well, when should I go back to my surgeon? When should I come back to see you for follow up?" And if things like this are triggering you to go back to get in your head, like maybe I should go back to the doctor and see what happened, first of all, we see our patients back routinely for many follow-up appointments and that's scheduled throughout the first year. It's not just, well, when we need to, if their problem arises, it's sort of like we want to make sure that you get through that healing process long-term so the end result will be what we expect.

 

Carey (10:05):
And that's also the importance of our note-taking in those follow-up visits because if this person's been coming for every follow-up and they're at their nine-month follow-up and then they decide, oh, I think I'm botched, we can look back and be like, "Well, the last three visits you've been completely satisfied. So what happened?" And then that's typically when they're like, "Oh, well, someone said something." And then we're like, "Okay."

 

Dr. Chang (10:30):
Right. Yeah. Someone getting in your head a little bit. And that's the thing, you don't want somebody else affecting your happiness, especially when to that person, the comment meant nothing, but to you as the patient, it meant a lot. It can really kind of hurt your confidence and hurt your satisfaction with the procedure. So I think -

 

Jackie (10:49):
We were talking about, what was that? There was that website a few years ago that was popular in college campuses where you could anonymously post.

 

Carey (10:58):
The dirty.

 

Jackie (10:59):
It wasn't that one, but it was something like that.

 

Dr. Chang (11:03):
Your college era and mine, I thought you just going to be like, "Am I hot or not?"

 

Jackie (11:06):
But one of our techs -

 

Carey (11:07):
That was one.

 

Jackie (11:08):
Yeah. One of our techs upstairs said someone anonymously commented saying that she had ugly knees or something. And she's like, "And that stuck with me forever." But it's like people are just insane.

 

Carey (11:17):
Ugly knees.

 

Jackie (11:18):
And then you get a complex about it.

 

Carey (11:21):
Who has cute knees? I'd love to know.

 

Jackie (11:22):
That's what I said. I was like, "Everyone's knees are ugly." All right. From the headlines, Madonna, 68. I thought she was older, I'll be honest. Won seven trophies at the September 27th MTV VMAs, including artists of the year. Social media quickly speculated about a BBL or padding in her bodysuit. Nothing's been confirmed, so it's all speculation.

 

Dr. Chang (11:46):
Well, Madonna's no secret. I mean, she's no stranger to basically judgment and hate. I mean, her whole career, people have been talking about her, about controversial outfits or things that she does that were more attention grabbing. So she's no stranger to that stuff.

 

Jackie (12:04):
That's true. So everyone's talking about her backside. What does that say about how we treat women over 60 who still perform?

 

Carey (12:12):
I don't think it's anything to do with a woman over 60 still performing because how praised was Dolly Parton. How anyone over 60 performing, actually, I feel like gets more credit for performing at that age. I think what people are criticizing is how terrible it looked. Whether it is an actual BBL or padding, it's bad. It looks harsh.

 

Jackie (12:38):
Think also her performance in general wasn't great.

 

Carey (12:41):
Yeah. She was just kind of gyrating on a piano.

 

Jackie (12:46):
I feel like, like you said, she's no stranger to hate. I almost feel like she thrives off of it. She wants people talking about her.

 

Carey (12:54):
Well, because yeah, the fact that she won... I mean, maybe I'm a little out of the loop, but the fact that she's artist of the year, did she have a new song come out? Anyone else know?

 

Jackie (13:04):
Not that I know

 

Dr. Chang (13:06):
Of. I don't know. Yeah. Why is she all over the VMAs?

 

Carey (13:11):
Yeah, I don't know.

 

Jackie (13:12):
I thought it was like - we're recognizing an old legend.

 

Carey (13:17):
It's not even like she's 70 years old. They're honoring her for a decade.

 

Dr. Chang (13:22):
That's a bad picture. That's weird.

 

Jackie (13:23):
That's why I thought she was older.

 

Carey (13:25):
Yeah. It looks like a butt padding.

 

Jackie (13:28):
It does look like padding, which is why -

 

Dr. Chang (13:30):
She's pretty thin. I doubt she's had a surgical BBL. She probably has padding.

 

Jackie (13:36):
And again, I mean, remember her cone bra. It's like, I think she does stuff like this for people to talk about her.

 

Dr. Chang (13:43):
Yeah, probably.

 

Jackie (13:44):
I do. I mean, can you really tell in real life between implants and butt padding? I think sometimes you can tell.

 

Carey (13:54):
I feel like butt padding though is a little bit less... I don't know. That looks pretty... Unless it's a prosthetic.

 

Dr. Chang (14:03):
Pretty real. It's pretty real.

 

Carey (14:05):
It could be a prosthetic butt and not butt padding.

 

Jackie (14:08):
It could.

 

Dr. Chang (14:09):
I just don't know where -

 

Carey (14:09):
I'll never forget.

 

Dr. Chang (14:11):
She'd get all that fat.

 

Carey (14:12):
My mom, my poor mom, she is flat as a pancake. And at my grandfather's funeral, I looked at her and I was like, "Are you wearing butt padding?" And she's like, "I didn't know, but my Spanx came with it." And it was a very subtle look. It was nothing like that.

 

Jackie (14:30):
Oh my gosh. That's hilarious.

 

Carey (14:32):
But yeah, I guess butt padding -

 

Dr. Chang (14:35):
At a funeral, Carey?

 

Carey (14:37):
My grandfather's funeral.

 

Dr. Chang (14:39):
You're definitely your mother's daughter. I could see you doing this.

 

Carey (14:44):
It was an accident, but I think she was like, "Oh, no one's going to know."

 

Jackie (14:48):
I mean, it kind of looked like she was wearing a spank type material, so it could be something like that.

 

Carey (14:54):
No, I feel like hers was so bad. It looked like -

 

Dr. Chang (15:01):
Shelf-y kind of. Or it didn't look very smooth. At least one picture didn't look very smooth with her thigh.

 

Carey (15:07):
Yeah.

 

Dr. Chang (15:07):
It looked like it was very much in the seat of the pant or the seat of the stockings or whatever she had.

 

Carey (15:13):
And it's so unfortunate because I feel like she had such a good face structure before she started to do all of this.

 

Jackie (15:24):
Yeah, she's very overly injected.

 

Dr. Chang (15:27):
Well, she's just aging. I mean, and I think she's just trying to do all these things and kind of looks a little bit wild, but actually she looked normalized. There was that one time, maybe five years ago or something when she looked really weird and people were like, "What happened?"

 

Jackie (15:41):
She looked like a cat.

 

Dr. Chang (15:43):
Yeah. She looked extremely unusual.

 

Carey (15:44):
I don't think she looks great.

 

Dr. Chang (15:46):
But it looks more normal now. It doesn't look that.

 

Jackie (15:48):
I think her face does look a little like whatever was done has settled.

 

Carey (15:51):
She's laid off the face and went to the butt.

 

Dr. Chang (15:54):
Maybe.

 

Jackie (15:54):
Yeah. I feel like we have to see her again, but also, I mean, it's the VMAs. You got to make a

 

Carey (16:01):
Splash.

 

Dr. Chang (16:01):
A statement.

 

Jackie (16:01):
Yeah, you got to do something.

 

Dr. Chang (16:03):
The VMAs is always some sort of shocking thing.

 

Jackie (16:04):
I mean, that's when Brittany was making out with Christina.

 

Dr. Chang (16:08):
Right, that's true.

 

Jackie (16:08):
So you got to do something to keep them talking besides being like, "Oh, your voice didn't sound that great."

 

Dr. Chang (16:14):
How did she win seven trophies, seven awards?

 

Carey (16:17):
Yeah. Something must have happened.

 

Dr. Chang (16:19):
They must have been being like, this is her swan song or something that they're trying to really promote her or something. Seven?

 

Carey (16:26):
I mean, I just don't get it, but I don't know. When was the last song she...

 

Dr. Chang (16:34):
But butt implants are -

 

Carey (16:37):
Coming back?

 

Dr. Chang (16:37):
Yeah. I'm seeing stuff about more people doing butt implants. I don't know if you guys have seen that.

 

Carey (16:41):
Really?

 

Dr. Chang (16:42):
Yeah. Maybe just because I have plastic surgery.

 

Jackie (16:44):
Do you think it's because...

 

Dr. Chang (16:47):
There's a lot of skinny people out there that want to have a little shape, but they don't want to have a full one.

 

Jackie (16:51):
And maybe they don't want to do the cadaver fat.

 

Dr. Chang (16:54):
Maybe.

 

Jackie (16:55):
So that's another option.

 

Dr. Chang (16:57):
Yeah. Sort of like the more subtle breast implant trend. I think more subtle buttock implant trend maybe or buttock shaping trend might be picking up.

 

Jackie (17:06):
Interesting. Would you do a BBL on a 68-year-old? How does age change the risk?

 

Dr. Chang (17:12):
I don't think 68 is as old as it used to be, let's put it that way. But I think that the things that we do worry about with BBLs and high volume liposuction are blood clots and fat embolisms. So of course being older, the risk is a little higher risk. Higher risk of blood clots, it seems like. Yeah, that does raise your score, your Caprini score for blood clots. And so you have to be careful and cautious about that. Of course, as you get older, there are other co-morbid things that are more common with aging, with blood pressure changes, cardiovascular risks and things like that. So you just want to be careful with any older patient.

 

Jackie (17:48):
Yeah. I think BBL or not, just anyone at that age. I mean, you can have a really spry 68-year-old with... They've never taken a medication in their life, and then you see some 60-year-olds that -

 

Dr. Chang (18:00):
They deserve a nice butt.

 

Jackie (18:01):
Yeah. And then there are some that are aging faster than others. So I think with any surgery, you do a full risk assessment based on their medical history. So it could be done on the right person.

 

Dr. Chang (18:13):
Yeah. I think 68 now, I mean, we see lots of people in their 60s that are very active. So 68 is not that old in today's day and age, I think.

 

Jackie (18:24):
Right.

 

Dr. Chang (18:25):
All right. So when every red carpet becomes a surgery spotting contest, what should patients take away about the faces and bodies they're comparing themselves to on TV? What do you think?

 

Carey (18:37):
I mean, I think seeing it on TV, that's probably a more realistic comparison than seeing what they post on their social media because their social media posts are probably -

 

Jackie (18:49):
Highly edited.

 

Carey (18:50):
Yeah. So I think seeing it on TV, that's a good way to tell.

 

Dr. Chang (18:55):
Does anybody watch live award shows anymore?

 

Carey (18:58):
I totally forgot it was on.

 

Jackie (18:59):
I don't watch, but I will say I haven't watched anything like that in years, but the clips go viral so much. So you see a lot of clips of it. So you see them walking down the carpet, walking on stage to accept an award.

 

Dr. Chang (19:12):
Like Victoria's Secret fashion show kind of thing or whatever, right? Yeah.

 

Jackie (19:16):
So you get to, I think, like you're saying, seeing it in motion under different lighting where it's not a specifically curated Instagram post is helpful to see the reality of it.

 

Dr. Chang (19:28):
All right. Well, don't believe everything you see online then. And if you have any thoughts about celebrities you've seen on the red carpet, let us know in the comments below.

 

Jackie (19:37):
Let us know what you think about Madonna's BBL. Maybe we'll see some more photos of her so we can get a better judgment if it's real or fake.

 

Dr. Chang (19:44):
If you're wearing a butt pad also, tell us.

 

Jackie (19:46):
If you go to a funeral with a butt pad, let us know.

 

Dr. Chang (19:48):
Tell us where the good ones are.

 

Carey (19:50):
Well, also my mom is 68. She always has her and Madonna are the same age.

 

Dr. Chang (19:54):
All right. All right.

 

Jackie (19:56):
We should ask her her opinion.

 

Dr. Chang (19:57):
Special guest. Come on, mom.

 

Carey (19:59):
My mom just took the more conservative route.

 

Dr. Chang (20:04):
That's what she should be for Halloween.

 

Carey (20:05):
Madonna?

 

Dr. Chang (20:06):
That's it. We got to get her the fishnet stockings outfit.

 

Carey (20:09):
Oh my God. Bring her into the office.

 

Dr. Chang (20:10):
That's it. We got it on the next episode, Halloween edition.

 

Carey (20:14):
My mom is mortified.

 

Dr. Chang (20:15):
All right. Have a good one, guys. Thanks for listening to Secret Services, the podcast where we see everything and say nothing except right here. I'm Dr. Christopher Chang, double board certified plastic surgeon located in Tysons, Virginia. Follow us on TikTok @congressionalpsurgery or on Instagram @congressionalplasticsurgery. To send us a classified message or to hear more episodes, go to secretservicespodcast.com. Links to everything we talked about on today's show are available in the show notes. Oops, patient's here. We got to go.