Sunny Hostin is getting candid about her body image journey, sharing that she got a breast reduction, breast lift and liposuction last summer.
“I thought I would feel shame, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m doing plastic surgery like all these crazy celebrities.’ But I don’t feel shame at all,” she told People while opening up about it for the very first time. “I hope sharing my story will help more people. If they’re feeling so body-conscious, the way I was — they can do what they need to do to feel better.”
The View co-host explained that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the event that ultimately led her to book an appointment with a plastic surgeon. She said that she was “crying” when the Toni Maticevski gown she was wearing didn’t properly fit her chest.
“I sat there and didn’t eat anything. I couldn’t lift my hand because my boobs were going to fall out,” she recalled, explaining that she wrapped her chest with masking tape to fit the dress. “[Musical group] Bell Biv DeVoe wanted to take a picture with me. I was like, ‘Oh God, they’re going to have these pictures of my boobs hanging out.'”
The occasion was one of many where she felt self conscious about her boobs. “By the time I was 16, I was a double-D,” she noted. “I couldn’t imagine my breasts would get bigger with childbirth — however, they did.”
When she joined The View full-time in 2016, her chest felt like a constant inconvenience.
“My waist was small, but my top was so big I would wear a minimizer bra and a sports bra or a binder all the time. Or I would get a very large dress, and then my stylist would put clips on the back of my dress so that everything would fit,” she explained.
It was both the negative impact on her body image and her back that made her decide to undergo surgery. “It was a health decision and a self-care decision,” she said, noting that the procedures that took her from a G-cup to a C-cup and her recovery were “not glamorous.”
She hopes that people can learn from her honesty and gain a more realistic perspective when it comes to celebrity appearances.
“I look through magazines and Instagram accounts. I always believed, ‘Oh, they must be clean eating.’ No, they’re not — a lot of them are taking something, or they’re getting plastic surgery. It’s their decision to keep it private. But I wanted to be really honest. And I’m so happy,” she said. “I feel like a better version of myself.”
And now that the world knows, she joked that she might just share the results of her surgery on air.
“Now I prance around nude all the time at my house — I feel great,” she said. “I don’t know, you may see me naked on The View!”
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