Chantelle Houghton reveals her lip filler addiction hurts like hell … but she won’t stop
CBB winner opens about about her cosmetic surgery habit
TEARS roll down Chantelle Houghton’s face as she’s overwhelmed by “horrific” pain every time the beauty therapist pumps collagen into her delicate top lip until it swells and bulges with filler.
The agony is so bad, pretty Chantelle finds herself gagging as a wave of sickness hits her stomach as the needle moves across her cupid’s bow and begins pumping again, inflating her delicate lip until it feels like it could burst.
It might hurt, but Chantelle loves the results of the procedure so much, she’s vowed never to stop having the fillers that leave her feeling sexy and youthful.
In an exclusive photoshoot with The Sun, Chantelle, who has spent tens of thousands on the treatments, says: “It’s really painful. It’s so painful tears were streaming down my face. It’s so painful you feel you’re about to be sick in your stomach.
“I can’t tell you how painful it is and the skin on your lips is so thin… It’s horrific but that doesn’t stop me doing it. It takes ten minutes.”
The most painful moment for Chantelle is when they inject her cupid’s bow with the thick collagen, only stopping when she’s happy with the look.
She said: “You know where the bow is on your lips, where the injection goes in there? that is ‘Oh my god!’ You can just feel the needle going in your lip and pushing stuff in, it’s just really, really f****** painful. I could do a bikini wax any day over the lips.”
In the past Chantelle has said she’s “addicted” to lip fillers but insists that’s not the case these days.
She says: “I was addicted back then and I wanted to go every three weeks.
"It is addictive, that sort of thing, it really is addictive.
"I was in my 20s, it was almost like nothing really mattered But now I’m in my 30s it is more of a conscious decision rather than following the sheep.
“I want to do to make myself feel good. I am happy with my lips, I’ve got to the stage in my life where I only care how I feel about it.”
Chantelle has no idea how much money she’s spent on lip fillers in total and wouldn’t like to guess. However, she admits it’s probably £2,000 a year for the past eight years, taking her bill to around £16,000 so far.
She admits: “I probably spend a couple of thousand pounds a year on them.”
Chantelle – who has four-year-old daughter Dolly with her ex-fiance Alex Reid – is currently single and celibate but searching for Mr Right.
And she reckons her lips could help her bag him because they make her feel so sexy.
She says: “I do feel sexy with big lips. It’s given me a bit more confidence, it’s just nice to put my lipstick on and have fuller lips. I don’t want them big in a glamour model way, more in an Angelina (Jolie) way.”
Talking about dating, she says: “It’s meeting the right person, I wouldn’t settle for anything less you know, it’s about meeting the right one.”
Not everyone loves Chantelle’s new plumper pout, which has left her fans shocked and lead to scores of scornful and abusive comments being posted online.
Even people in the street are surprised, with Chantelle admitting: “People do notice them, they do stare at me, especially when I wear darker lipstick.”
But despite the pain, ridicule and the indignity of even surgery addict Alicia Douvall, who has spent £1m on 350 procedures, warning her off undergoing more procedures, Chantelle is delighted with her new look and has no plans to stop having the injections every 12 weeks and is refusing to listen to critics.
Alicia recently said: “I want to warn Chantelle that having small procedures like lip fillers is just the start. It’s a dangerous path.”
But Chantelle responds to the catty comment with kindness, saying: “It’s nice of Alicia to say that, God she’s been through it, but it doesn’t hurt me at all, because I know the way I’m going to go with it.”
Talking about the trolls that bother her on the internet, she brushes their cruelty off, saying: “Someone said the other day a horrible thing but I was like, 'Whatever'.
Years ago I would probably have wrote back to them but it’s just some idiot showing off to their mates. It doesn’t hurt me at all.”
Someone said the other day a horrible thing but I was like, 'Whatever'
Chantelle Houghton
Chantelle shot to fame after winning Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 and falling in love with Ordinary Boys frontman Samuel Preston.
They went on to marry but after just ten months it was all over and they got divorced.
Then in 2008 she had lip fillers for the first time and around the same time boosted her boobs to a 32FF.
She says: “I was in my 20s it was the done thing, like the boob job, if you didn’t have your lips and your boobs done you were almost the odd one out.”
Despite initially announcing plans to be the new Katie Price after her boob job, Chantelle grew to hate them as the weight of them left her suffering agonising back pain and needing regular physiotherapy.
Last year she had them reduced to her natural 32B but was left with terrible scarring.
She says: “I regret my boobs, massively. The week I had breast implants was the week I read an article saying it was in (fashion) to be flat-chested.
“I regret having them done because I’ve been left massively scarred.
"I’m just glad to have them out of me now. They hurt my back all the time and they were massive and ridiculously too big anyway.”
Do you think my lips look big? I’m as natural as I can be
Chantelle Houghton
Chantelle will have to live with the scars for the rest of her life and they’re an every day reminder of the mistake she made.
She says: “They had to cut underneath my boobs to get the implants out, and cut upwards and take both of my nipples off and do an uplift.
“I’ve got anchored-shaped scars from my nipples. I’m not bothered about it, it’s just something I did and I really regret it, I’m more glad that they are out, than worried about the scars.”
While the new look is certainly eye-catching and obviously due to fillers, 32-year-old Chantelle reckons her current look is her most natural ever and asks: “Do you think my lips look big?” when the topic is brought up.
She said: “I’m as natural as I can be.
"I haven’t got my boobs anymore and that was a massive fake thing on me but apart from my lips I haven’t got anything else done, well apart from fake tan.
"I’ve got nothing else apart from my lips now and obviously a bit of Botox, no breast implants, no hair extensions, no eyelash extensions.”
Chantelle loves switching up her look and admits wanting change her face through plastic surgery.
However, after the fiasco with her breasts she’s decided never to go under the knife for non-medical reasons again.
She says: “If I could change my face I would but I can’t, I’d change my nose if I could, I wish my chin was a bit of a different shape, but there is nothing I can do about it.
“I will never go under the knife again, ever, unless it’s for a health reason.”