Plastic Surgery to Look Like Jennifer Lawrence? Meet Women Who Went Under the Knife to Look Like Celebrities
Meet the women who spent thousands to look like famous actresses.
March 27, 2014 -- UPDATE: As of July 3, 2014, Kitty told “Nightline Prime” she is saving money to have more plastic surgery done. Watch the full story on “Nightline Prime” on Saturday, July 5 at 10 p.m. ET.
Kitty is a mega-fan of the spirited voluptuous Jennifer Lawrence, so much so that she underwent six plastic surgery procedures to carve herself into looking more like the "American Hustle" star.
"I can appreciate that her personality is spunky and fun," Kitty said. "I can appreciate that her body is banging."
Call it plastic surgery 2.0., where aspirations to look like a starlet are inspired by personality, good looks and self-empowerment.
"I'm not trying to look like Pamela Anderson here during her 'Baywatch' days," Kitty said. "I'm trying to look like a very capable, very personal level-headed female who is an Academy Award winner."
A 30-year-old dog trainer, a wife and mother to a 5-year-old daughter, Kitty embarked on a four-week odyssey in February at First Surgical Hospital in Houston, Texas.
"I am a strong woman," she said. "I am in charge of how I look and I can change that and then change that again if I want."
Dr. Franklin Rose, Kitty's surgeon, who heads Utopia Plastic Surgery in Houston, said patients will bring in images of "any number of well-known celebrities" and ask for "certain noses, lips, breasts," among other things.
"Patients come in wanting to have lips like Angelina Jolie, breasts like Scarlett Johansson, Megan Fox," he said.
But is this sort of extreme makeover, where patients are willing to have their features altered to look like one of Hollywood's elite, psychologically healthy? Dr. Rose said he has had to turn some patients away.
"By this point in my career, after evaluating 14-15,000 new consultations, you can tell very quickly within a matter of a minute if the patient is well adjusted or not well adjusted for whatever the procedure they might present," he said.
Kitty underwent $25,000 worth of surgeries -- minus a discount from the doctor for appearing on television -- which included liposuction to her face and body, a breast augmentation, rhinoplasty and fat grafts to her cheeks and buttocks. The entire procedure took six hours and her recovery took a several weeks.
Kitty says that over the last few years, the more famous Jennifer Lawrence has become, the more she has heard from friends and strangers about her resemblance to the actress.
"The more I've looked at her, the more I've realized that her features are sort of my features but more refined," she said.
Kitty met with Dr. Rose and said she "went in and said 'this person resembles me so much, Jennifer Lawrence looks like me but look I like this more about her face, I like this more about her body and can I get these upgrades.'"
Her motivation to get surgery was also fueled by motherhood, "the reason why I decided to get surgery is because post having my daughter, I wasn't quite as comfortable with my body," she said. "I don't think you have to be crazy to want to look better or feel better about yourself. That's not crazy."
Even though it was an expensive undertaking, Kitty said it was worth it. While she acknowledged it was money that could have gone to a college fund for her daughter, she said time was on her side.
"Basically the money that I had for this was money that I had saved from previous job ... so it was sort of a 'me fund,'" Kitty said. "My child's only five and I'm still just barely 30 so I think I still feel like maybe it's naiveté but I still have some time to rack up some money to help her when the time comes."
Eric, her husband, wasn't convinced his wife needed cosmetic surgery.
"Jennifer Lawrence isn't a celebrity that I have particularly strong feelings about one way or another," he said. "It's totally her choice."
Kitty is part of a younger generation of women who are happy to pay the costs and take on the risks of plastic surgery to channel their inner-favorite celebrity.
Another woman named Rosie, a 43-year-old marketing executive from Las Vegas, wanted to look more like Michelle Rodriguez, the tough but sexy actress famous for her "Fast and Furious" persona.
"I've always been told that I look like Michelle Rodriguez and I love Michelle Rodriguez, she's bad, she's beautiful," Rosie said.
"I'm not a freak," she continued. "I'm obsessed with trying to look like Michelle Rodriguez. I'm just in love with … the feminity that she has. She is this bad a-- person that loves fast cars, she has muscles, she's like, you know, a really cool chick and the fact that I'm told I look like her, I would, why not?"
But aside from working out regularly and trying to get her body into shape to emulate the actress, like Kitty, Rosie also had another motivation for the surgery.
"I have a very harsh face," she said. "That's my reality. If I don't smile it looks like I'm upset so I would like the enhancements to correct that."
After months of research, she elected to have a fat-grafting procedure. She selected surgeon Dr. Samuel Lam of Lam Facial Plastics, who wrote the book on facial fat-grafting. In February, Rosie flew with her boyfriend Carmen to Dallas for a $8,000 fat-grafting surgery with Lam.
While in the Dr.'s waiting room, Carmen, who all along had been supportive of the procedure, expressed some concerns.
"I feel like she doesn't need it," he said. "I like what I see. I like what I enjoy. I like what I kiss, and what I get to experience. So I feel that she doesn't need any more enhancements, but if this is what you choose, adelante." Rosie chose to move forward with the procedure, "I am doing this for me, I'm not doing it for him."
The next day, during her procedure, Rosie's fat was harvested from her body -- also known as liposuction -- to be used as a filler in her eyelids, nose, undereyes, cheeks and chin to add volume and sculpt her face. The whole procedure took two hours.
Six weeks after her surgery, Rosie was very pleased with the results, though ironically, she thinks she looks less like Michelle Rodriguez. She said she no longer had the "harsh face" that had motivated her to get surgery and looked younger and refreshed.
"I don't think I look like Michelle Rodriguez at all, I'm not disappointed by it. I kind of like this is Rosie, this is me, I don't have to look like her. So, not disappointed," she said.
Kitty's was ecstatic with the results.
"Of course I look like Jennifer Lawrence," she said. "I thought I had a resemblance to Jennifer Lawrence before my surgery and now I think after, my features are more refined to where they resemble her more."