Many patients undergo plastic surgery in order to look like their favorite celebrities. They will schedule a consultation with a doctor and show photos of the celebrities they wish to resemble after the procedure. Most of the patients want to look like actual living celebrities. However, there are two cases of male patients in Brazil who had multiple procedures in order to resemble a Ken doll. Of course, Ken is best known as Barbie’s boyfriend. In both cases, their attempts to look like a living, breathing version of Ken resulted in major health issues for both patients.
Celso Santebanes was a teenager when he first started altering his appearance to more closely resemble Ken. Celso spent over $40,000 in American currency to try and turn himself into a human version of Ken. He started his transformation soon after he won a modeling contest at the age of 16 and the list of operations performed on him include work on his nose, jaw, chin and silicone implants in his chest. His family had often told him that he resembled the iconic Ken doll so Celso decided to make a change in his appearance. His new look caught the eye of promoters in his native Sao Paulo after he appeared on a talk show and his newfound fame brought him personal appearances where he often charged over $10,000 per event. Celso was always a fan of dolls and he even grew up with a room filled with dolls that inspired him to become a “human puppet”. In fact, he launched a line of dolls in his image called “Celso Dolls” shortly before his health took a turn for the worse.
Unfortunately, the hydrogel fillers injected into his legs years earlier became infected and he had to make a trip to the hospital. The visit to the hospital revealed that Celso had cancer. He died in 2015 after contracting pneumonia as well as complications from his five-month battle with leukemia.
One other Brazilian man trying to look like Ken is 32-year-old Rodrigo Alves. Alves has been diagnosed as suffering from body dysmorphic disorder which means he has an unhealthy obsession regarding his body image and overall physical appearance. Medical experts say that people who suffer from this illness often undergo a number of plastic surgery procedures in an attempt to “fix” what they see as flaws in their appearance. However, people who suffer from this disorder are never satisfied with the attempts to change their appearance.
Alves has undergone over 40 cosmetic surgery procedures over the last ten years at a cost of over $400,000. One of those surgeries caused him a good amount of trouble as he was admitted to the hospital earlier this year because of a rotting nose. Experts say that a nose operation he had months before his emergency trip to the hospital was the cause of the rotting nose. Alves, who currently lives in London, noticed that a hole had appeared on the upper left part of his nose. A visit to the doctor brought a diagnosis of necrosis due to a lack of blood flow to the tissue in the nose. There is some concern among his doctors that his necrosis might spread since the necrosis causes areas of tissue to die after they are deprived of a flowing blood supply. Even though Alves has been warned to stop before more damage is caused to his face, the fact that he suffers from body dysmorphic disorder might make it hard for him to exercise the control necessary to stop making alterations to his appearance in the future.
- MA
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