Tara Reid Gets 'Ugliest' Breast Impant Surgery Repaired

Oct. 26, 2006 — -- Talking over coffee Thursday about the surgery she underwent to remove her breast implants, actress Tara Reid bemoaned the horrors of her botched breast-augmentation surgery.

"If I had to do it again, I never would have done it in the first place," she said to hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Joy Behar on "The View."

When it comes to cosmetic surgery, many stars still don't admit that they've had work done. But Tara Reid wants everyone to know about the "botched" breast implant and liposuction procedures that left her embarrassed to show her body in public.

"I was on the Web sites as having the ugliest boob job in the world," the 30-year-old "American Pie" actress told Us magazine.

"I got my breasts done for the first time because my breasts were uneven," Reid told Us. " I was a 34-B, but the right one was always bigger than the left. I weigh 110 pounds now, but I always used to fluctuate by 10 pounds, so my skin was kind of saggy. I figured, I'm in Hollywood. I'm getting older. I'm going to fix them."

But the procedure was a disaster from the very start, she said.

"First of all, I asked for big Bs [B cups], and he did not give me big Bs," Reid said. "He gave me Cs, and I didn't want them. At all. Right after the surgery, I had some bumps along the edges of my nipples, but the doctor said, 'Don't worry. It's going to be better.' But after six months of 'it's going to get better,' it started to get worse and worse."

Six-Pack Abs, a 'Bulgy Thing'

Reid had liposuction performed at the same time as her breast augmentation -- and that, too, was a disappointment.

"I got lipo because even though I was skinny, I wanted -- I'm not going to lie -- a six-pack," she told Us. "I had body contouring, but it all went wrong. My stomach became the most ripply, bulgy thing."

Reid unwittingly exposed the disastrous results when she posed for pictures at a November 2004 party and her dress strap fell down. But she was also embarrassed in private moments.

"Guys I was dating would be like, 'What's wrong with them? They look really bad. You know, you should really get them fixed.' [It's so] embarrassing," Reid said. "I mean, you definitely need to turn off the lights, that's for sure."

Reid said that reconstruction surgery was painful, but that her life is back on track. "I'll never be perfect again," she said, "but I've got my self-confidence back."

Could It Happen to You?

Reid's botched surgery came as no surprise to one California plastic surgeon.

"No, not surprising at all," said Dr. Brent Moelleken, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and professor of plastic surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles. "Celebrities ... often do less research than 'normal' patients."

So-called normal patients are not immune to plastic surgery mishaps. The best way to avoid those mishaps is to know that your surgeon is qualified, experts said.

Talk to your plastic surgeon, said Moelleken. Ask yourself, "Is he reasonable? Is he telling me what I want to hear rather than what is good for me?"

If your plastic surgeon insists on a procedure that doesn't feel right, "run the other way," Moelleken said.

"The most important part of getting a good result from plastic surgery is the surgeon you choose," said Dr. Darrick Antell, spokesman for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

To find a board-certified plastic surgeon, visit the ASPS Web site at www.plasticsurgery.org.