Navigating body image isn’t easy for many teens, but according to Raven-Symoné, Disney Channel fame didn’t help. In the Aug. 6 episode of “The Best Podcast Ever With Raven and Miranda,” the actor opened up about her experiences with bullying and body-shaming, which eventually led her to seek out cosmetic surgery. “I had two breast reductions and lipo before I turned 18,” Symoné told her wife, Miranda Maday. “There was paperwork involved.”
Symoné said her dad, Christopher Pearman, “strongly” suggested a breast reduction to help mitigate some of the body-shaming she experienced as a Disney star. “He was like, ‘So you don’t feel bad, is there anything you want?'” Symoné remembered. “I was like, ‘Yeah, if I get lipo, will people stop calling me fat?’ So I got a twofer,” she said. “It was just a mess, just being that young and the pain of it all.”
Following the first surgery, which included liposuction, Symoné got another reduction because her breasts “were still too big for others’ feelings,” adding that she “disassociated” during her recovery. While waking up from surgery, she also had a seizure, although she still doesn’t fully understand why. “I remember waking up and seeing everything, and then I just started to have this dry mouth and couldn’t breathe and then I went back under.”
Now, she’s mostly recovered, but still deals with the physical and emotional effects of having surgery so young. “I have scars,” she said. “I still have scar tissue to this day.”