‘I was suffering’: Karamo Brown opens up about painful botched plastic surgery and his road to recovery
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The ‘Queer Eye’ alum noticed something was different after he gained 70 pounds during the COVID-19 pandemic. But his choice of surgery led to a years-long nightmare.
Karamo Brown has set the record straight about many things in his life. Now he’s getting personal about an elective surgery that left him with scarring, complications and several health challenges.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE for its latest cover, the 45-year-old “Queer Eye” alum opened up about a 2021 buccal fat removal procedure that left him in agony due to scar tissue buildup that denied his saliva from properly draining. Buccal fat removal, according to Mia Aesthetics, is a procedure performed to reduce prominent cheeks and thin them out, allowing for more accentuated cheekbones.
“For years, people have been like, ‘Karamo’s had plastic surgery. He has so much filler in his face,’” Brown told the outlet. “I was like, ‘You know what? I can’t say anything because you can’t get into fights with the trolls.’ But I was suffering for years in pain and no one knew.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was the reason Brown opted for the surgery. After he gained 70 pounds and described himself as a “big boy,” Brown thought the surgery would be a simple fix.
“It turned into a year-and-a-half of pain,” he admitted.
The saliva built up in each of Brown’s cheeks, forming scar tissue that hardened it, creating the “worst” pain for the “Queer Eye” star. The complications persisted even after he launched his daytime talk show on NBC in 2022. After shooting numerous episodes, he said his mouth would get “so dry” and be “so swollen.”
Luckily, he eventually shed 70 pounds, making the scar tissue less and less visible.
“The scar tissue and the saliva were still there, but because I was skinnier, it looked kind of normal,” he says. “I stopped eating because it helped the feeling of not having so much scar tissue.”
Still, Brown struggled with his appearance, especially as he filmed both his eponymous show (which ended at NBC after 4 seasons) and “Queer Eye,” which concluded after 10 seasons this past January. It forced him to remain quiet about his plastic surgery due to the “embarrassment” it caused him.
“People around will look at you differently and they don’t say anything, but you feel it,” he says. “That was equally as hurtful as how I saw myself. I even remember one of my former [Queer Eye] castmates was watching an old clip during the final season, and he was like, ‘Oh, look how handsome he used to be.’ I was like, ‘Okay, girl, I caught your little dig, but whatever.’ Those types of things affect you. They hurt your feelings.”
“I would never do it now, but I couldn’t live with the chronic pain anymore,” he added. “I couldn’t live with my mouth swelling up and not being able to talk.”
After undergoing another procedure to fix his salivary glands, Brown says he’s happy with the decision to get things corrected, while also offering advice to others who have gone under the knife, only to come out with lingering pain.
“I know there’s other people suffering with their chronic pain,” he said. “I was fortunate enough to have the resources to find somebody who could help me, but I want to tell people that you don’t have to suffer alone. I wish I would have told people what I was going through and not allowed myself to just stay quiet.”
Brown isn’t the only celeb to be vocal about a botched plastic surgery procedure. K. Michelle has been vocal about the illegal injections she received for her butt implants, eventually having them removed. Another star, Tiffany “New York” Pollard, starred on an episode of “Botched” for E! after her previous implants led to Breast Implant Illness, prompting her to remove them to save her life.