Last year, I became absorbed in the messy B-list divorce shenanigans of Stephanie March and Bobby Flay. Flay and March had been married for ten years, and they fought hard and they fought dirty over the money. At the end of the day, March and her take-no-prisoners team got a generous settlement (I believe) in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. During the very messy back-and-forth in the press, we learned from Team Flay that March wanted more money from Flay because she had health issues resulting from a “bad boob job.” That story made March seem superficial, and she apparently still feels stung by the story. So much so that she wrote an essay for Refinery 29 detailing this bad boob job and why she decided to go under the knife. You can read the full piece here. Here’s an excerpt:
Before I go any further, I want to say clearly and truly that I have no problem with plastic surgery. None whatsoever. It’s a private matter. It’s nobody’s business. It often turns out just fine. And I fully anticipate my revisiting it in the years to come, if I’m being honest.
But I now know that my decision to have a breast augmentation in 2014 was the wrong decision, for so many reasons. I was 39 years old, and my life was disintegrating. Couldn’t get a job I wanted on camera, couldn’t get attention for my production projects, couldn’t travel the world far enough or fast enough or immerse myself in philanthropy enough to make it all go away. It was like watching a glacier cleave into giant chunks: massive and seemingly well beyond my control. See, the other thing that was happening was that my marriage of nearly 10 years (and 14 together) was falling apart. And nothing, nothing was helping me cope. Not therapy, not patience, not wine-soaked dinners with friends where I “got it all out.” Great spidery cracks widened over time. Boom. Boom. Boom.
I could not fix it — any of it. My job. My relationship. My life. Not a damn thing. But not being one to sit on a problem, I decided to try one last thing. And what I did next was exactly what you are not supposed to do when it comes to plastic surgery. I decided to change my body because I couldn’t change my life. The previous health issues and surgeries had left their mark, and I was down about 15 pounds. Down and sad and tired. You know what doesn’t look so great when that happens? Your breasts. Let me tell you a little something about nice breasts. If you have the time and the money, you can buy them. How remarkable is that? Thanks, Science! Bingo. That’s what I was going to do. Get a little boost.
In retrospect, there were signals that this might not be the right path for me. Every implant I tried on seemed alien, too large. I didn’t feel ready to throw away my pretty bras. I worried that I’d look top-heavy. But I ignored the signs and soldiered on.
So, long story short, she got the implants in August 2014, she followed medical advice and for five weeks, she looked amazing. And then in October 2014, she woke up and “felt a sickening wet mucus sliding down my chest.” Her right implant was infected and she had to spend six weeks on a hardcore course of antibiotics. Then she had the implant put back in, then it got infected again and ruptured on Christmas Eve. After that, she came to the conclusion that her body was simply rejecting the implants and that she just need to stop. It was April 2015 before she came to that conclusion though, and it came just as Flay filed for divorce and everything was a mess. She ended up having additional surgeries, but mostly to correct all of the damage she had done to her breasts over the previous year.
She also says that she’s not ashamed, and she shouldn’t be. I’m glad that she’s so honest about what she was going through, and I can understand how she was looking 40 in the face and she wasn’t happy with her life and she started thinking, “maybe new boobs would help.” It happens all the time. If any woman wants to get some plastic surgery or a boob job or whatever little nip and tuck, God bless. All I ask is that you don’t wrap it up in some narrative about how you’re all-natural and untouched by a surgeon’s scalpel.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
