Chanel West Coast Talks ‘Strenuous’ Liposuction Recovery, Avoiding Ozempic

Chanel West Coast has been open about her weight loss struggles after she had her daughter in 2022, and she exclusively told Us Weekly about opting for liposuction.

As someone who says she was always a “skinny person,” she began gaining weight with the arrival of daughter Bowie Breeze, who turns 2 in November, whom she shares with boyfriend Dom Fenison. When standard diet and exercise didn’t help her shed the pregnancy pounds, Chanel, 36, turned to liposuction — a decision that she told Us Weekly “jumpstarted” her weight loss, though it came at a cost.

“I will say it was a lot rougher than my friends made it out to be, but that’s why I wanted to be open because I think a lot of girls don’t know how rough these things are and they think, ‘Oh, you just pop out skinny and it’s a miracle,’” she told Us exclusively while on the red carpet at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards in New York on Wednesday, September 11.

Instead, Chanel encountered an arduous road to recovery that she isn’t sure others know about before considering liposuction.

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“it’s a long recovery process,” she added. “It’s very strenuous and I just wanted to be open about it so other girls could see that this is really what it takes.”

Though liposuction is typically an outpatient procedure, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says the first few days may come with “moderate pain and soreness.” The organization adds that doctors may install drains at the site of the surgery to prevent fluid buildup that could slow healing and patients are given “a compression garment or elastic bandages to wrap around the treatment areas.”

Many patients return to work after two weeks, though they may still need to wear their compression garment. It may take as long as a month for soreness to subside completely and several months for swelling to dissipate.

Despite the tiring recovery process, Chanel says she preferred liposuction to weight loss medication like Ozempic — a craze she does not understand.

“I don’t even know how people take Ozempic,” she said. “I think it’s a shot. I’m just scared of stuff like that. I heard that if you stop taking Ozempic, you could possibly gain more weight. I’m like, ‘Well, that’s not what I want to do.’”

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This isn’t the first time Chanel has spoken out against Ozempic. She appeared on the Page Six “Virtual Reali-tea” podcast in July, where she said she was just “never a fan” of the medication.

“For everybody [Ozempic] works for, more power to you, dude,” she told the podcast. “If it’s working for you and you feel great and it’s not affecting your health, then I’m happy for you.”

Though she wasn’t happy with her physical appearance, Chanel was still proud of herself for showing her true postpartum experience on her MTV show, West Coast Hustle, which debuted in July.

“I am just happy that people got to see a whole different side of me,” she told Us of her series. “I’ve been laughing on TV for so long and smiling, which I still do a lot of, but people got to see a deeper side. I’m crying a lot on the show. I had just had a baby, so my hormones were going crazy. I also was filming very overweight after having a baby, my first time being on camera that heavy. So it was very nerve wracking, but I just wanted the fans to get to see me in the most realest form and they got that.”

Reporting by Christina Garibaldi