‘Human Ken Doll’ Comes Out As Transgender & Quits Plastic Surgery

Nov 12, 2021

Plastic surgery has been a hot topic of late, with more and more people going under the knife in the US in the last five years, according to Medical News Today. But although surgery and procedures are becoming more normalized, there is still a big debate regarding the ethics of plastic surgery. 

The question of whether cosmetic procedures promote unrealistic beauty standards is one big topic, while another is whether it's possible that some people can become addicted to changing their appearance. One person who's made their name by undergoing an incredible amount of surgeries and procedures is Jessica Alves, who is no stranger to making headlines when it comes to plastic surgery.

Before she discovered her true identity, Alves struggled with accepting herself and her outward appearance. She has been referred to as a "human Ken doll" due to the extreme amount of plastic surgery she received while living as a man named Rodrigo. After coming out as transgender in 2020, Alves continued to move forward with getting surgery after surgery in a bid to become a real-life Barbie doll.

After being so open about the number of surgeries she's had done, over the years, Alves has had a few major wake-up calls when doctors warned her of the damage she had already inflicted on her body and how it could potentially get even worse. This led her to declare she was quitting plastic surgery, but on multiple occasions, she's gone back on her word and went under the knife once again.

Alves has said that the numerous surgeries she underwent were her way of trying to come to terms with living as a man, but ultimately she was never happy. Now that she's living her truth as a woman, Alves appears to be much happier.

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil on July 30, 1983, Alves was given Barbie dolls by her grandfather to play with and has revealed that "since the age of 3, 4, 5, 6" she considered herself to be female, which led her to play with dolls and crossdress.

Then in her teenage years, Alves began to grow breasts at the same rate as her female peers due to having a hormone dysfunction, which led to her being bullied. Alves told The Sun that she was targeted for other features as well, with bullies calling her "big nose" and "jelly belly." She added:

“Growing up I felt alone as nobody wanted to be friends with me. Because of my body image and the fact that I was shy, I avoided social situations.”

After getting her first plastic surgery done at the age of 17, Alves found a new passion for changing the way she looked, and with it came newfound confidence that she hadn't possessed in her younger years. Following a move to London at the age of 18, Alves underwent ever more surgeries and procedures that altered her appearance drastically. That's when she began to be known as the "human Ken doll" and eventually became a noteworthy figure in pop culture and in the world of plastic surgery.

These days Alves has a following of over 2.2 million people on Instagram. She's also appeared on a number of television shows including “Celebrity Big Brother” and “Botched,” the latter of which is about plastic surgeries gone wrong. 

In 2013, Alves had a major health scare from having gel injected into her arms by a doctor in Brazil to make them appear more muscular. Soon after she lost the use of her arms for around a month due to a bacterial infection. Alves later told The Sun:

“I was crying every day. I was extremely depressed. I would just pray and cry. It nearly got to the stage where they were talking about chopping my arm off. The doctors said if the bacteria had gone to my heart I would have died.”

Luckily, she was able to regain control of her arms after some time, but the incident was a wake-up call for her. She took it as an opportunity to seek help and see a psychotherapist. She was then diagnosed with body dysmorphia, which is defined as a mental health condition wherein someone obsesses over perceived flaws in their appearance that are often unnoticeable to other people. This can lead them to go to great lengths to try and change their appearance. 

In the same interview with The Sun, Alves said:

“When I look in the mirror, I don’t see what other people see. I see flaws that I want to fix. It takes me ages to leave the house in the mornings because I have to correct everything.”

Now aged 38, Alves has undergone more than 100 cosmetic procedures — with over 50 being surgeries — ever since her first foray into plastic surgery at the age of 17. She's changed various facial features and other parts of her body, which has drastically changed the way she looks. But Alves' many surgeries have all led up to a key realization in her life, which she only spoke about publicly in the last year.

Despite having a major health scare with her arms in 2013, where she could have died, Alves couldn’t help but want to keep trying to reach the level of perfection she strived for in her mind. This led her to continue getting even more surgeries, some of which resulted in other dangerous effects on her health and well-being. 

For example, she has had so many nose jobs — 12 in total — that she's even lost her sense of smell. Alves admitted this while in the "Celebrity Big Brother" house in 2018, where she revealed she has to breathe through her mouth as it's not possible to breathe through her nose anymore. 

Her nose was also the topic during her appearance on "Botched." When she appeared on the latter back in 2017, Alves sought yet another nose job as a way to help her breathe better but was ultimately warned to stop getting so much surgery done as it could be extremely detrimental to both her physical appearance and her health. 

After her time on the show, she chose to stop getting cosmetic procedures but just one year later she went back on her promise. Alves spoke with Mirror back in 2017 and spoke about her desire to get less surgery. She said: 

“There are so many non-invasive treatments on the market that can replace surgery. I’m not giving up on trying to stop the natural aging process.” 

However, that all changed when she had breathing problems following one of her nose jobs and wanted to get another one to fix it. But just because she wanted more surgeries didn't mean Alves would be able to find surgeons who were willing to operate on her.  

She came up against this on the 2017 episode of “Botched" that she appeared on when Dr. Paul Nassif refused to do any additional rhinoplasty on her as she had gotten three nose jobs done in the past 15 months. Since her nose was in the healing process from her last surgery, it was best to just leave it be, or else something horrible could happen to it. The doctor, who specializes in rhinoplasty, told Alves:

“If you try to insult your skin one more time now while it’s healing, there’s a high possibility that … [your nose] will turn black, and then die and fall off."

That was when Alves had vowed to quit plastic surgery but as we now know, she reneged on her promise a year later. Story Trender reported that Alves opted to go under the knife again to help with her breathing and pitch problems while singing, as she strived to become a pop star. She also planned to have eyelid surgery and a chin implant. She said:

“There is a risk for my nose of necrolysis — the decaying of the skin — it will be very complicated, but I can’t live how I currently am forever."

Since her time on "Botched" Alves has continued to change her appearance through more surgeries and procedures, despite strong warnings from her doctors. She had her most recent nose job, her 12th, around one year ago to fix issues she'd had from previous surgeries. She told the Daily Mail:

"I saw five different surgeons and everybody declined the surgery, they said they didn't know how to do it and they were overly negative."

But she ended up finding Dr. Ali Gürlek in Istanbul, and he "used cartilage from [her] ear and [she] can breathe much better now." 

While Alves was in the "Celebrity Big Brother" house in 2018, she opened up to other contestants about her journey with plastic surgery. She said, as reported by The Sun:

“I don’t recommend for anyone to follow my journey when it comes to that. There have been complications and it has been a long journey. But you do empower people. In life you have the decision to be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do, as long as you don’t cause harm to other people. I did what was right for me.”

In March of 2019, Alves moved into pop music as she had wanted when she released the song “Plastic World” with Italian plastic surgeon Giacomo Urtis.  

Then in Jan. 2020 Alves came out as a transgender woman and revealed that her need for constant surgeries had its root in her problems with her gender identity. Alves made the announcement of her being transgender on her official Instagram account. In the post, she included a photograph of her presenting herself as a woman. The accompanying caption read:

"The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years."

In an interview with The Sun, Alves said:

"I’d always felt feminine and when I struggled to be manly with my personality, I decided to make my appearance as masculine as possible instead. But no matter how much I looked liked Ken nothing eased the   pain   of   being   Barbie   inside. It was a really tough decision for me, but I just reached the point where I couldn’t live as a man any more." 

She said in the same interview with The Sun:

“In November last year I started surgeries to remove the masculine implants I’d spent so much money on years before ... It’s been a long, painful, expensive journey, but I’m finally at a point in my life that I look in the mirror and I’m starting to see me.”

In an interview with This Morning, Alves gave an explanation for why she thinks her multiple cosmetic procedures stemmed from a more serious underlying issue. She postulated that her motivation to turn herself into a living doll was merely her attempt to deny her secret desire to live her life as a woman. She said: 

"I tried my best to be a male. I had fake six-packs put in, arms put in, but I failed badly because I was never happy. I carried on having those plastic surgeries because actually I wanted to be a woman."

As for the new and improved Alves, she seems to be thriving as she lives her life proudly as a woman. In her first appearance as a woman on ITV, Alves told interviewers that she had indeed gone through the appropriate psychological treatment and screenings that one ought to receive before transitioning genders. She assured them that this wasn't something she took lightly. In the pursuit of her new life, Alves also continued to get surgical procedures, slowly altering her looks to appear more and more feminine. She said

"I lived a great life as a man. I traveled the world [and] I've done everything that I could do as a man. Now it's a new beginning. It's 2020 and it's the beginning of a new life."

In Feb. 2021, Alves revealed that she had continued to get more plastic surgeries done.

What do you think about this human doll and her desire to continue to get plastic surgery? Let us know, and feel free to pass this on to your family members and friends, too.