Price is right about plastic surgery – and she should know
You might be surprised to hear that Katie Price has said there’s “nothing worse” than young women getting cosmetic surgery. Such procedures are, after all, part of Price’s identity – a significant factor in her becoming, and remaining, so famous.
At 45, she has had 16 boob jobs and countless other procedures, including facial treatments such as filler, Botox and a nose job. You might well argue that it’s hypocritical for a woman in the public eye to send such mixed messages.
But in my view, Price’s statements – that surgery is “damaging to your body” and that “everyone looks like aliens these days”, made on the podcast How to Fail – are refreshing precisely because of the contradictions that she embodies (in the same interview, she said: “I still choose to do it”).
There has been a huge rise in the number of people undergoing non-invasive cosmetic procedures, such as Botox and filler, in the past 10 years. In the UK, demand has been up 50 per cent since the end of lockdown – an increase that reflects the steady growth of the industry since the 2010s, when “Instagram face” (a look consisting of big lips, a small nose, feline eyes and chiselled cheeks) became the new aesthetic ideal for young women.
Where surgery was once taboo, now having “work” done to meet such a standard is as normal as plucking your eyebrows. In fact, tracking public perception of Price herself goes a long way in showing just how much things have changed in 20 years.
When she began her career in “Page 3” glamour modelling in the late 90s, Price was known as “Jordan”, an alias that became associated with her multiple boob jobs, deliberately “trashy” look and outspoken personality. Her fakeness made her an outlier, or even an object of derision.Now, the scales have tipped. You’re more surprised when you see a reality TV star who hasn’t had their lips filled, teeth remodelled and jawline sculpted. Over the past few years, Price has still been subjected to tabloid speculation that she’s “gone too far”. It’s just that now she’s far from alone.
The problem is that, aside from sensationalised media stories, conversations about surgery are too often removed from the substantive reality of altering your body. Rather, they are about the murkier topics of individual choice, honesty and authenticity.
In 2015, a 17-year-old Kylie Jenner had lip filler injected and lied about it, using her transformation instead to market an own-brand make-up “lip kit”. When she eventually admitted that she did have lip fillers, it became a badge of honour. How brave she was, the narrative went, to admit that she had been insecure about her lips in the first place.
These kinds of circular arguments are exactly what fuels the problem. With the stakes dramatically lowered when “procedures” are marketed as “non-surgical”, connotations of “living one’s truth” can just as easily fuel the decision to change yourself as they can the choice not to.
Price, meanwhile, has brought the conversation back to cold, hard reality: it’s painful, it’s expensive, it can make you look like an alien, and she wouldn’t recommend it.
All that, yet she would still do it herself. We have heard about celebrities regretting surgery – and you’ll find plenty of videos on YouTube in which plastic surgeons analyse celebrities’ faces to cast light on the work they have possibly had done.
But these polarised attitudes – performative honesty and total secrecy – are harmful for young women. It doesn’t help to hear about reversals and regret when we are still bombarded with images of “perfect” faces and bodies.
Price is right that women getting filler in their early twenties have no idea how they’re going to look in 20 years. She has enough experience to say it’s “damaging”. But she also has the guts to say she’ll do it again. That’s a very Price way to say that she doesn’t have all the answers.