PLATELL'S PEOPLE: Why I still swear by the fat-freezing that ruined star model Linda Evangelista's face

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Back in the 1990s, Linda Evangelista was the catwalk queen with her posse of supermodel peers - Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Claudia Schiffer.

They were so fabulously paid they refused to get out of bed for less than $10,000, or so the myth had it.

They were born with supernatural beauty and bodies to make mortals gasp. Women envied them; men wanted them; everyone knew them.

And yet, we now see, even the most alluring are victims of the same insecurities as the rest of us. 

This week Linda, 56, revealed that five years ago she underwent the cosmetic procedure CoolSculpting: a treatment that freezes fat cells to break them down.

Back in the 1990s, Linda Evangelista was the catwalk queen with her posse of supermodel peers - Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Claudia Schiffer

Model Linda Evangelista revealed that five years ago she underwent the cosmetic procedure CoolSculpting: a treatment that freezes fat cells to break them down. She's now suing the company

A rare reaction has changed her appearance to such an extent she has become a virtual hermit: she is now, she says, ‘permanently deformed’ and is suing the company behind the procedure.

What possessed her to do it, when nature had already blessed her with perfection?

And what chance for the rest of us when Linda can afford the most expensive clinics and still ends up disfigured and despairing?

The cosmetic procedure industry in the UK alone is worth £4 billion, globally almost £50 billion - which means millions of women, and many men, are taking up not the age-denying but the age-defying challenge.

I have written for years about the non-surgical treatments I’ve had, even Linda’s controversial CoolSculpting. 

For me, nothing but great results and no regrets. Yes, it hurts a bit - but if it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston, who swears by it, then it’s good enough for me.

Sparingly used, these procedures can be transformative for mind as well as body. 

All but one of my girlfriends is regularly having ‘something done’. None would admit to it publicly, some not even to their husbands.

Luckless Linda is one of the few who has admitted to it — yet only because it went so horribly wrong.

In a way, she has done us a service.

And in a world where women are still judged on their looks, who can blame them?

There but for the grace of God go so many of us, Linda. I’m sorry it had to be you.

Marylebone Cricket Club now insists that batsmen be called ‘batters’ and the Man of the Match be ‘Hero of the Match’. 

But what next? 

A maiden over turns into ‘they/them over’ and dolly is a ‘gender-neutral catch’?

Sadly, the boys’ game is still more exciting than the girls’. Sorry, bat-ladies!

Not sure whether to laugh or cry as Johnny Depp moans about cancel culture... while accepting a lifetime achievement award.

‘It’s got so far out of hand that... no one is safe, not one of you!’ claimed the proven wife-beater and drug user to his adoring audience at a Spanish film festival.

The only thing that got ‘out of hand’ was Depp’s own terrifying temper - and his ex Amber Heard had the bruises to show for it. 

He’s a washed-up disgrace.

Proudly carrying a sign boasting ‘Arrested 4 times because I am in mourning for life on Earth’ and blocking roads repeatedly, this week insulation ‘hippy-crite’ Joshua Smith is revealed as the heir to a £2 million property empire - on top of his own £1 million portfolio.

More annoying, at least six homes owned by Josh’s firm in Oldham have E or F energy efficiency ratings, meaning they have little or no insulation and pump out carbon dioxide. 

If only we could insulate ourselves from hypocrites like him.

'Hippy-crite’ Joshua Smith is revealed as the heir to a £2 million property empire - on top of his own £1 million portfolio

As Adele proudly posted a picture of her and hunky boyfriend Rich Paul on Instagram, Rich was profiled for a New Yorker magazine piece. 

Asked about his pop star squeeze, he insisted her name be omitted: ‘I’m single. Put that in the story.’ 

As Adele might say: ‘Hello... It’s me. So why won’t you admit I exist?’

Why was Meghan wearing a cashmere polo neck and winter coat on a warm day, as she and the equally privacy-loving Harry paraded around New York on their would-be ‘royal’ tour? 

Why was Meghan wearing a cashmere polo neck and winter coat on a warm day, as she and the equally privacy-loving Harry paraded around New York on their would-be ‘royal’ tour?

If the Duchess really was trying to hide her baby weight after having Lilibet, well done her for not feeling the usual pressure on celebrities to return to a Size 6 in as many weeks.

To appease the woke warrior brigade (which won’t work), the latest Bond film, No Time To Die, has been stripped of 007’s traditional seduction scenes, along with any bad language and violence. 

But fear not! 

There will still be ‘occasional discreet establishments of sex’, words such as ‘damn’ - and fisticuffs that might even include ‘a broken arm’. 

Well, that all sounds thrilling. I fear Bond will be dropping martinis for mocktails, too...

Westminster Wars  

Telling French president Emmanuel Macron to ‘prenez [get] un grip’ as he fumes after being cut out of the Aukus defence deal, Boris muses: ‘It’s a very human thing to delay the frank conversation until the last possible moment.’ 

Just ask his ex, Marina, whom he left for younger Carrie.

Up pops one of the PM’s ex-mistresses, Jennifer Arcuri, at a Greater London Assembly committee probing the ‘trade’ trips she took when he was London Mayor. ‘You could see the difference in him when I walked into the room. 

Everyone knew he had a crush on me!’ breathed Jen. In the end he dumped her, but there is something charming about this Yankee who proves, pole-dancing and all, that blondes (and blonds) do have more fun. 

Keir Starmer’s best effort to woo voters at this week’s Labour conference is a 12,000-word essay on winning power. 

In 1997, Tony Blair had a pledge card of 50 words — and won three consecutive landslides.

Standing in for Boris at PMQs, Dominic Raab didn’t stand a chance against banshee Angela Rayner. Labour loved her berating Raab with warnings of impending class war. 

She likes the finer things, Ange, not least £249 headphones... paid for by us, natch.

Madonna, 63, shuffles around at the premiere of her new concert film flashing a bustier, miniskirt and fishnets, a diamante tiara declaring ‘F*** You’ and a necklace urging fans to ‘Trust No B****’. 

Glued to the pint-sized pop star’s arm was her twentysomething dancer toyboy, Ahlamalik Williams, who pretended to lick her curiously unlined face. 

Madonna, 63, shuffles around at the premiere of her new concert film flashing a bustier, miniskirt and fishnets, a diamante tiara declaring ‘F*** You’ and a necklace urging fans to ‘Trust No B****’

Madonna’s dapper sons David Banda, 16, and Rocco Ritchie, 21, joined her at the event: think of what it must be like for them to have the world’s most embarrassing mum. 

A sad moment at the High Court this week when Heidi Crowter, 26, lost her bid to overturn a cruel law that allows babies with Down’s Syndrome to be aborted at any time up until birth.

Heidi, who has Down’s herself, wept on hearing the verdict and vowed to fight on.

I’m not sure which is more tragic: the despair of this beautiful, articulate young woman, or the callousness of a law that would deny her and so many others the right to live full, passionate lives.

Attacking new laws in Texas that ban most abortions from six weeks after conception, actress Uma Thurman tells of the termination she had as a teenager after she was ‘accidentally impregnated by a much older man’.

Brave of her to speak out, yet I’m still scratching my head over how anyone gets ‘accidentally impregnated’.

It’s sex, honey, not losing your specs.

Much excitement at the Ryder Cup as Team Europe’s golf wives are buffed up like contestants for a kind of old-style Mrs World contest.

Hard to imagine another sport where the Wags suffer such humiliation, though perhaps not surprising for one where players talk, unironically, about trying for a ‘birdie’.