Celso Santebanes, better known as the second Human Ken Doll, has passed away at the age of 20 after a fight with leukemia. Santebanes was diagnosed with the aggressive cancer last year and died after contracting pneumonia last week, the New York Post reports.
Santebanes was arguably the most famous out of the trio of Human Ken Dolls, which includes Justin Jedlica and Rodrigo Alves. Sanebanes had his own doll modeled after him, and even aspired to what the other HKDs failed to: team up with Human Barbie, Valeria Lukyanova.
During his lifetime, Santebanes spent $50,000 on plastic surgeries for his nose, chin, and jaw in an attempt to replicate the famous Mattel doll. However, the illness changed his perspective on chasing beauty. "I am no longer concerned with the issue of aesthetics," he said in January, according to the NY Post. "For me that doesn’t matter. What matters is my health now, and I will fight for it."
Santebanes also said that if he had survived, he would have been finished with surgery, and that the procedures were a way for him "to supplant this lack of … of love, perhaps,” he told Hoje Em Dia.
