Blac Chyna recently announced on Instagram that she had breast and butt reduction surgery over apparent health concerns.
“I want you all to be a part of my [life-changing] journey,” Chyna wrote alongside a video in which she clarified that she received silicone injections at 19 instead of a Brazilian butt lift, commonly known as a BBL.
She continued, “I just want all the ladies out there to know: Do not get silicone shots, because you can get sick, you can die, have complications and all this other crazy stuff. I want this out of my ass so I can grow.” In addition to her butt and breast reduction surgery, Chyna also dissolved her face fillers, saying, “It all has to come out. It’s as simple as that.”
Chyna’s transformation raises the question of whether or not the era of women enhancing their rear ends and receiving face fillers are over. While Hollywood used to celebrate slim, model-like figures, the standard for women’s bodies began to shift in the 2010s. It became a trend for women to get BBLs, pursuing a curvier frame that celebrities like the Kardashians helped popularize. The hourglass figure is nothing new for a lot of women of different cultures, but the Kardashians are attributed with making it a trend. While the famous family has denied going under the knife, fans have noticed a shift in their appearance lately. Kim Kardashian, Khloé, and Kylie Jenner all appear less curvy and slimmer in the past year, according to their fans. Some have even speculated that they had a “Skinny BBL,” which is a less dramatic version of the big butt and hip enhancement procedure.
This conversation involves a lot of medical expertise. So Complex caught up with Dr. Michael Salzhauer, better known as Dr. Miami—who is widely known for his successful cosmetic procedures on some famous names and now has over 2 million TikTok followers—to share some insight on Chyna’s recent transformation and the current state of plastic surgery trends. Take a look to see what Dr. Miami had to say about Chyna’s transformation, his thoughts on the BBL era, and more.
Blac Chyna recently announced that she removed fillers from her face and silicone from her butt. What are your thoughts on that announcement?
Yeah. I think it's great. I think that anybody can overdo things. The whole point of plastic surgery is to improve your self-esteem. So when it reaches the point where you become self-conscious about the plastic surgery, then we've gone too far and need to go back to something more natural.
It's an individual decision every person has to come to for themselves. But I have seen, at least in the last six months, more people coming in to ask for reversals of BBLs to make them smaller. I used to have one or two people a year ask for that, and I think I've already had three this year and it's March. So, in my mind, it's kind of an uptick. Also, I've had a lot more requests for what we call skinny BBLs.
You said you've seen an increase in customers asking for the reversal of their BBLs, what do you think the reason is during this time?
I'm not yet convinced that suddenly people don't want to have big butts. I think people have overshot the mark of what they thought they wanted. So let's say you got your BBL in 2017. Now you've lived with it for a few years, and you think, “Maybe I went too far.” So now you want it a little bit smaller. The popularity of the procedure hit a peak, and now people who maybe have gone too far are realizing it and coming back to get it back to a more moderate size.
They still want to have butts. I have yet to see a person with a naturally occurring big booty come in and say, “I want to have a flat butt.” I don't think it's a cultural change that people suddenly don't want to have butts anymore. People who have maybe overshot the mark are now wanting to be a little bit less exaggerated or less noticeably enhanced.
Is the reversal for a BBL and silicone injections just as invasive as the original procedure?
Blac Chyna never had a BBL; she had silicone injections. It's different. BBL is fat. That's pretty easy to reverse. You just go in and suck out the fat. The silicone is more tricky, because the silicone attaches itself to the skin and the tissues inside, and has to be kind of excised. You have to cut it all away. So a lot of times you can't just do a liposuction. You have to make an incision, peel back the skin, and then cut it out, and then put the skin back. So that is more invasive, way more invasive than getting the injections, either fat or silicone, put in.
Taking silicone out is a much bigger deal. It's not like the facial fillers are made of something called hyaluronic acid, which can be dissolved by injecting another chemical to dissolve it called hyaluronidase; that can be reversed fairly easily with just an injection. Getting silicone out of the butt is a big deal. It's a much bigger operation, with a lot more downtime and a lot more scarring.
I'm curious. Can you share the top five celebrity reference photos that customers come in with saying, “I want to look like this,” when they're referencing fillers in their faces or BBLs?
J.Lo for the butt. Kim Kardashian. Her body has changed so much over the years. I always have to ask, “Do you mean Kim Kardashian now? Kim Kardashian in 2015? Kim Kardashian pregnant? Kim Kardashian on a diet?” You have to be specific. Kylie [Jenner] is a big one. Oh, but she has been for a while.
A lot of people, in the last couple of years, will just show me random internet people they follow, whether they're TikTokers or Instagram models. They're not necessarily famous. They may have a few hundred thousand followers, but they're not A-listers.
It seems as if you're not afraid of the potential backlash that you could get when fans suggest that you're referencing the Kardashians or mentioning Kris Jenner in your TikTok videos.
I don't know what you're talking about. Santina [my assistant] does all the writing on my TikTok and something about a Bris Benner and Jardashians. I don't know. I'm not afraid of controversy. I think that's clear after 20 years.
It appears that the ’90s aesthetics are making a comeback. In your opinion, is it just as eye-opening as the BBL era?
I don't think that's—I don't see that in Miami anyway. If that's happening in New York and L.A. that may be true, but it's not happening in Miami. Women down here still have curves and are still asking for curves. Maybe everything's just shrunken a little bit. Maybe if we were like a No. 10; maybe we're down to an 8.
You'll know that that aesthetic has taken over when curvy people ask for that aesthetic. I mean, the ’90s people would say, "I hate my big butt. Suck it out." Young people never asked for that, but women in their 30s would've asked for that in the ’90s.
So what you're saying is the BBL and filler era is not over?
No, it is not over. I think people are realizing what the right amount is. And people are more self-conscious about that. What I used to see is women would way overdo their lips. I don't know who was putting in that much filler. But then their friends, I would assume their friends, no one would tell them it's too much. They would just say, “Oh, it looks good." Now people know that there are options to dissolve fillers. I think now people are telling them it's too much.
People are learning how to overline their lips. So they're realizing, “Hey, I don't need that much filler, because I can achieve the same look with a lip liner.”
Right, you don't need that much filler. Yeah. Two is good. Two syringes are plenty for most people. Three is already too much. And if you're going to four, five, and six—no. Double digits. That's way too many syringes of filler. It's kind of like ketchup. You can always put more ketchup. Don't put too much. You can always add a little more.
Where do you see the future of plastic surgery going within the next five years?
Within the next year, people will continue asking more for skinny BBLs and not the ginormous dump truck BBLs anymore. I think that trend is going to continue for a while. And same thing with fillers. People are learning how to moderate their filler consumption. There's a recession. So I think with that, people are going to do more and do it more sparingly. If they used to get their botox every three months, they'll get it every six months. If they get their filler once a year, they might spread it to 18 months or 2 years.
