Drag Race star Michelle Visage shares emotional reason she removed her breast implants
Legendary Drag Race host Michelle Visage opens up about removing her breast implants in an emotional interview on the Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk. (Facebook Watch/Red Table Talk)
Michelle Visage has opened up about her experience with plastic surgery and the emotional decision she made to remove her breast implants.
The longtime RuPaul’s Drag Race judge sat down for a heat-to-heart interview with Willow Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris on their series Red Table Talk. The popular Facebook Watch talk show features the three generations of the Smith family bringing their unique insights on seemingly taboo subjects.
In the latest episode, Visage told the hosts that she had three breast augmentations over several decades to achieve the “boobs of my dreams”. But she finally decided to have the implants removed after being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease that damages the thyroid gland.
“It happened pretty soon after my first set of implants, and so my journey started there,” Visage explained. “I would have these flare-ups where I would gain a ton of weight – my body would go bloat up and down.”
She recalled questioning her doctors about her implants and how it could be affecting the condition which resulted in her “my body is attacking an invader”. Even though she suspected the implants might be causing the flare-ups, she said one doctor advised her not to remove them because they wanted to make sure it wasn’t something else.
“After 20 plus years of chasing my health, constantly continuously things getting worse and I couldn’t understand why, that was my last step,” Visage said.
Michelle Visage also opened up about the mental impact that removing the implants had on her. She described how her “breasts were always part of the fun” and “caricatureness” of her identity, but she has come to love the way her body looks now.
“When I see myself, it’s literally a rib cage,” Visage explained. “There is a nipple on top of a rib cage, and I love it. I wished I loved it at 17 and 18 and 19.”
She acknowledged that the entertainment industry is “f**ked up” especially for women because there is a “standard that we cannot live up to unless it’s purchased”.
“And that’s unfair for the younger generation,” Visage declared.
Tune in to watch Red Table Talk with Michelle Visage on 29 September at 9am PT/12pm ET on Facebook Watch.
