Thanks to reality TV and social media, the wives of athletes are a huge part of pop culture.
Many of them are down to disclose their nips and tucks, and some even invite their production
crews into the operating room.
Here are some of their most stunning transformations.
Once upon a time, the only athlete's wife who got substantial news coverage was Marilyn
Monroe when she wed Joe DiMaggio — and that was because of her status as a screen icon,
not due to being the spouse of a baseball great.
But all that changed in 2006 when Victoria Beckham led a glamorous troupe of football
— or soccer — players' wives around Baden -Baden, Germany, during the FIFA World Cup.
Wife to David Beckham, the Spice Girl and her crew easily overshadowed the actual sports
action by partying, shopping, and looking awesome.
The press even coined a term for the clique: WAGs, or "wives and girlfriends."
A cultural movement was born, and Beckham was at the forefront — along with her trademark
tan, hairdo, and — shall we say — very 2000s breast implants.
The ample assets helped her become an icon of that era's aesthetic, but she would grow
to regret going under the knife.
In 2014, Beckham told Allure that she'd removed her implants, coyly looking at an old picture
of herself and remarking,
"I think I may have purchased them."
She had previously dubbed her breasts, quote, "torpedo bazookas" when speaking to the NZ
Herald in 2011, so clearly, she felt iffy about them for a while.
Beckham also alluded to her breast implants in a 2016 letter to her teenage self, published
by British Vogue.
She wrote,
"​​Don't mess with your boobs.
All those years I denied it -– stupid.
A sign of insecurity.
Just celebrate what you've got."
Nowadays, what Beckham's got is a highly respected fashion line and four kids — plenty to celebrate.
Dawn Ward threw her fans for a loop when she posted a seemingly innocuous photo of herself
enjoying a Sunday roast with her football star husband, Ashley Ward, in March 2021.
One follower commented,
"It doesn't look like her at all."
Ward didn't confirm or deny that she'd had a post-lockdown tune-up.
But in the past, she's been very open about the work she's had done.
She talked to The Sun about a 2017 facelift and quipped that she, quote, "isn't one to
age gracefully."
The Real Housewives of Cheshire original cast member also said,
"​​I'm going to be honest, when you're on a TV show, you really put yourself out
there on display, so of course it's pressure."
She also once revealed she'd had an eyelift, speaking to the Daily Mail about the procedure,
and also once told her followers she had a bum lift.
It's safe to say Ward is one of the most open plastic surgery fans of all time.
Khloé Kardashian rose to fame as Kim Kardashian's little sister on E!'s Keeping Up With the
Kardashians.
And since her wedding to NBA player Lamar Odom in 2006, she's also cemented her status
as one of America's foremost basketball wives.
That marriage didn't last, but Kardashian has been spotted with a smattering of ballers
since then, most recently her on-again-off-again beau and baby daddy Tristan Thompson.
But the one thing that fluctuates more than Kardashian's relationship status is her look.
The reality star first turned heads with what appeared to be a new bum sometime around 2016.
Kardashian's team issued a copyright claim to keep an unapproved photo from being published
by media outlets, and fans still don't know whether the star's changing image is due to
plastic surgery or heavy photo editing.
Kardashian commented on the controversy on Instagram Live, saying she's had body issues
from a young age.
She also seemingly defended editing her pics, saying,
"How I choose to look and what I want to share is my choice."
Later in the year, she did tell Andy Cohen she's had a nose job and injections, but continues
to insist her growing booty is due to exercise alone.
"But I've had one nose job, Dr. Raj Kinodia."
Rebekah Vardy has endured as much speculation about her looks as her mortal enemy, Coleen
Rooney.
Vardy shot to fame when Rooney accused her of leaking stories to the press in 2020.
But she was reasonably well-known in the U.K. already — and with footballer fame comes
plastic surgery rumors.
To her credit, Vardy has been open about her two breast surgeries.
She indulged in a pair of E cups in 2018, according to The Sun, as a corrective surgery
when one of her previous implants ruptured.
She said at the time,
"I wish that I'd never messed with my boobs in the first place, but my self-esteem was
so low and I just did it to try and boost my confidence."
She's also open about her love of Botox anti-wrinkle injections.
She told Mirror Online she'd had loads of the stuff, saying,
"I go in the sun and I've hardly got any wrinkles.
It's not nature, it's Botox.
I can't bear it when women lie about this stuff."
Like her Real Housewives of Cheshire castmate Dawn Ward, Tanya Bardsley has been open about
her treatments.
So open, in fact, that she described how a botched boob job left her breast turning black.
She told The Sun,
"​​I was left badly scarred after my boob job.
Sometimes things can go wrong.
I didn't want to get my boob out in front of my husband."
She also cops to having gone too far with fillers, saying her doctor had to stage an
intervention.
She told The Sun,
"When I had my lips done I wanted more, more, more.
My doctor ended up saying to me I looked ridiculous.
I had to have it all dissolved!"
Still, neither of these incidents dampened her love of plastic surgery.
Ayesha Curry is known as one half of the NBA's most wholesome couple.
She and her husband, Stephen Curry, met at church, after all.
"I moved to the states, um, when I was 14, and he was one of the first people that I
met moving here."
Her image is so squeaky clean, people have written essays imploring men to stop holding
her up as the standard for all women while simultaneously throwing celebs like Kim Kardashian
under the bus.
Still, even Curry has indulged in a nip and/or tuck — and lived to regret it.
She went for a breast lift while suffering from postpartum depression after the birth
of her daughter Ryan.
She told Working Mother,
"The intention was just to have them lifted, but I came out with these bigger boobs I didn't
want.
I got the most botched boob job on the face of the planet.
They're worse now than they were before."
She added that she won't be going under the knife again any time soon, saying,
"I would never do anything like that again.
But I'm an advocate of if something makes you happy, who cares about the judgment?"
When it comes to athletes' wives and their openness about plastic surgery, we're sensing
a trend: the ones who appear on reality shows are much more willing to talk about what they've
had done.
And Porsha Williams of The Real Housewives of Atlanta is no exception.
Williams told Us Weekly that she'd had Botox and regretted it, saying,
"I work at Dish Nation and so I'm sitting on the TV, I'm sitting on camera, and they're
telling me to make an expression and my face would not move, so just because of my job
I couldn't do it, but I loved it by the way."
She also admitted to having her breasts done.
During a round table with Glamour magazine, when asked what most Real Housewives stars
had had done, Williams quipped,
"Everything, we're plastic."
She added,
"I had my breasts done.
I mean, I had a big check from Bravo.
It was after my divorce."
Williams is now leaving Real Housewives, but it'll be surprising if she stops opening up
about her life.
"I gotta find me something to wear for this whole weekend."
Tami Roman Youngblood of Basketball Wives helped her doctor out with a little publicity
following a laser liposuction procedure.
She invited the show's cameras to capture her SmartLipo experience, and her doctor seized
on the moment with a press release trumpeting her love of the treatment in 2010.
Roman, who's married to former NFL player Reggie Youngblood, also tries to stay slim
for health reasons because she's diabetic.
After significant weight loss in 2018, she was subject to trolling.
She clapped back by posting on Instagram,
"I didn't lose weight, I lost my willingness to die.
DIABETES IS NO JOKE!"
While she chalked her more recent weight loss up to dieting, she hasn't ruled out more procedures.
Roman once tweeted,
"If I could afford more plastic surgery I wouldn't touch my face — but damn if I wouldn't
get my thighs another smartlipo."
Perhaps the most common but least talked about procedure in the celebrity world is the Brazilian
butt lift, or BBL.
Ample behinds have become more and more popular in the past few decades, but most stars don't
admit that they're enhancing what nature gave them.
Former Basketball Wives star Latosha "DJ" Duffey is an exception.
She posted an entire vlog about her BBL procedure, and she was even open about the fact that
the pain made her cry.
Duffey, who's engaged to NBA player-turned-agent Iman Shokuohizadeh, explained why she's so
open about such procedures in 2021.
Speaking to The Jasmine Brand, she said,
"Ya'll see me and be like, 'Damn, Duffey got fine all of a sudden.'
I'm not about to lie to ya'll and say I got it from working out everyday, because I didn't."
She added that she sees nothing wrong with cosmetic surgery, saying,
"If you want to enhance the way you look and you can afford it, I see nothing wrong with
it."
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