£50,000 NHS bill to correct real life Ken’s sixth nose job
Air steward’s 42 ops to look like Barbie’s pal
A SURGERY addict who has had 42 operations to look like Barbie’s Ken is to get a new £50,000 nose on the NHS after his body rejected his latest implant.
Brazilian-born Rodrigo Alves, 32, has spent £305,000 to recreate the ‘perfect body’ – going under the knife 20 times across the world in the last year alone.
But after his sixth nose job the air steward, who now lives in London, began having trouble breathing when a hole appeared in his nostril and his new septum seemed to come loose.
He was taken to hospital in Malaga, Spain, and told he had flesh eating bug necrosis. He was given antibiotics and put on a drip every eight hours. Doctors warned that if something was not done the infection could eat through his nose and into his face.
He is now due for yet more surgery in Britain, paid for by the NHS, and has been signed off from work for two months. The 10-hour operation will involve his nose being rebuilt from scratch using cartilage from his rib area, after previous ops left him with hardly any nasal bone and tissue. Mr Alves, who has funded his operations using inheritance from his Brazilian grandparents and rent from his property in Marbella, said: ‘I can’t breathe through my nose and feel terrible. It has collapsed.
‘I have been given an appointment with a consultant in London in six weeks then I’m hoping surgery can be as soon as possible. I know I wasn’t born in this country but I work and pay my taxes here and have a British passport so I am entitled to get help from the NHS. I’ve always paid for my other operations myself. This is an emergency.’
Mr Alves claims he was born in the wrong body and has previously said he considers the classic doll’s boyfriend Ken the ‘ideal man’.
He first went under the knife in 2004 after being bullied during his childhood in Brazil. His long list of surgery includes £8,000 on Botox and fillers, £3,000 on liposuction to his jaw and £10,000 on chest implants. Mr Alves had a £25,000 hair transplant in Beverly Hills and cheek fat removed last August.
He has also spent £22,000 on a fake ‘six pack’, £7,000 on work on his arms, £7,000 on hospital bills, £6,000 on leg liposuction and £3,000 on calf shaping. In January he splashed out £15,000 on his sixth nose job, liposuction and a chin implant in Iran. Three years ago he suffered dangerous complications after surgery to enhance his biceps and shoulders with silicone.
He arms swelled so much he could not feed or bathe himself. Doctors told him one might have to be amputated. Last year, he began treatment for body dysmorpia, which causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look.