The Sunday People had pictures over the weekend that appear to show that newly-retired Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington has had surgery on her nose to remove a small bump. The ex-athlete, who has won two gold medals for Britain, was spotted leaving a clinic in Harley Street and photos of her before and after the reported ‘nose job’ seem to show a slight difference.
Rebecca, who has an OBE and a swimming pool named in her honour, has been quite public about her insecurities surrounding her looks. Appearing on I’m A Celebrity…, she broke down during a conversation about beauty pageants. Alfonso Ribeiro (from The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, obvs), piped up ‘What’s wrong with appreciating beauty?’ To which Rebecca responded: ‘It’s making people like me feel very very insecure, that I have to look… I was an athlete, I wasn’t trying to be a model, yet pretty much every week on Twitter I get someone commenting about the way I look.’
You can see just how emotional she gets in this video clip (which includes Big Mo from Eastenders being an absolute sweetheart fyi)
Rebecca later re-explained her feelings on the show: ‘Every day I look in the mirror and go, ‘God, I’m not pretty. I’ve got a very big nose,' she said. 'That’s what most of the negative comments on Twitter are about – my nose. People say "Oh God you look like a dolphin", or "I didn’t realise they let whales into the Olympics, but at least you should be able to swim faster."'
She's also always been very open about her thoughts on surgery. 'I’d have it straightened. But I couldn’t float the idea of having a nose job before, because with swimming you only get two weeks off a year,' she said whilst in the jungle. And when she was later questioned about it in The Telegraph, she said: 'There's nothing wrong with wanting to make the best of yourself.'
It looks like Rebecca's taken the opportunity now she's not training to have the surgery. And there's part of us that thinks, fair enough. She's clearly spent a long time thinking about this and maybe getting the surgery is going to put an end to the torment and insecurity she feels. Here's hoping. Plus, who are we - who is anyone - to judge someone for such a personal decision as plastic surgery? Saying that, it's a sad inictment of the pressures upon young women if the bullying she's suffered on social media has played a part in this decision - and, in a way, given its ferocity, how can it have not?
Either way, depressingly, no amount of surgery will fix the broken perceptions of all those trolls out there who think it’s legit to trash women based on their looks. And yes, we’re looking at you, Frankie Boyle.
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Picture: Rex
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.