Danniella Westbrook is preparing for her seventh surgery, during which doctors will take part of her ribs and place them into her face. The former EastEnders actress admitted she was "exhausted" by the operations she has been undergoing to reconstruct her face after years of drug abuse.
The 52-year-old has spent the past 18 months receiving treatment to repair her septum, which collapsed in 1999.
Ten procedures planned, six completed
In an interview with Vanessa Feltz on her new YouTube series, Danniella explained that she would need a total of ten procedures and had completed six. She said: "I'm at that stage now where I come around from surgery with the last two and I've been like: no more."
The actress said she was "feeling okay", adding that her next surgery was set for October and that this one would see doctors put part of her ribs into her nose.
Pointing to her nose, she said: "So that's when they redo, make this bit skinny and pull it up and they put the ribs in the side and stuff and everything to support it."
Concerns about the toll on her body
Vanessa was shocked that doctors were taking bone from other parts of Danniella's body. "Buts from your ribs are going in the side of your nose," she said. "B****y hell."
When asked about her many surgeries, Danniella added that, while she trusts her surgeon "implicitly", she was worried about how much she was putting her body through. "I really do trust him. But I do feel like I'm 52, I put my body through enough and then putting your body through anaesthetic and it's not short surgery, it's like five or six hours each time."
"And the recovery from that - I'm really feeling the recovery if I'm honest. I just feel absolutely exhausted. I feel like I've got nothing left. When I come around, I'm like, 'Please just let me sleep'. I've got nothing left."
The star admitted that she might have given up if it was only about how she looked, but she could not because without the surgeries she would not be able to breathe properly.
Previous surgeries and health struggles
Back in March, Danniella went to Dubai to have a face, neck and brow lift, alongside a lip and nose reconstruction. Speaking to Vanessa Feltz previously, she shared how much she hated her look: "Even now, I've just recently had to have a facelift to realign both sides of my face because they were so wonky."
"Just to get this nose in a certain position so we can start working on that, not for anything cosmetically beautifying, but no, I still hate looking in the mirror."
She also revealed how bad her drug addiction had gotten before her septum collapsed whilst on Terry Stone's Connection podcast. She shared that she was fired from BBC soap EastEnders after falling off the wagon and estimated that she was taking two ounces of cocaine a week and would flush it down the loo if she thought people were about to find out.
Danniella also shared what her drug use did to her health. She admitted that she was only just over six stone when she was taken into rehab and that she was so thin that her ribs and spine were visible.
