Abby Lee Miller has no issue sharing all the details when it comes to her recent facelift.
The 53-year-old Dance Moms star, who co-hosted Entertainment Tonight on Friday, also got candid with ET in December about undergoing a facelift with plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni. Dr. Simoni's signature facelift doesn't put the patient to sleep while he or she undergoes the procedure which was ideal for Miller, given her doctors' orders that she can't be under general anesthesia. The reality star has faced serious health issues over the years, including getting diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma in April 2018 and undergoing emergency spinal surgery. On Friday, Miller also shared with ET video of her walking for the first time after having to be in a wheelchair.
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Still, Miller said going under the knife again for her facelift was necessary.
"Well, it was not about what I wanted, I guess it was what I needed," she tells ET's Keltie Knight. "I never thought about having a facelift before -- you live in Pittsburgh, you go to work every day, this never entered the picture. But after what I've been through and the number of surgeries and the hours in surgery, it was all internal. I went through all that pain and all that rehab and nobody could see anything! So, I wanted to do something that made me feel better, that made me look better and something that I was like, 'Wow, I had surgery, but look at me now.'"
Dr. Simoni also explained to ET what makes his facelift different from others.
"Well, a lot of people are scared of a traditional facelift," he notes. "One, they don't want to look done. They're scared of that pulled look that you can just see from miles away that this person had a facelift done. Also, people don't want to go under anesthesia for 78 hours and especially for Abby, which was important because most of her doctors said, 'We don't want you to go under major anesthesia unless you have to.'"
"So, the Simoni facelift is different because first of all, the patient is awake -- obviously we make sure the patients are comfortable, we make sure we give you enough stuff that you're relaxed during the procedure," he continues. "And then we kind of get them a little bit sitting up so that way I can see the face in a natural state. So, when I lift it, I don't have to guess. This becomes a natural facelift. So, I don't have to just pull in directions that I'm not sure of. I can see what I'm doing, patient's awake, patients talk to me and they're comfortable and we finish it in two hours."
Miller described what the experience was like for her actually being awake during the procedure.
"I was talking to him as he was cutting my face open," she recalls. "It's horrific, I didn't know all of this, but you go in, it's beautiful -- this office, the facility is fabulous -- you go in, you feel really comfortable, they numb you up a little bit, next thing you know, you’re finished, and then I saw some video of the actual technique and the cutting and the sucking the stuff out, and then I was absolutely horrified and freaked out."
"I didn't feel it," she continues. "Had I known what he was doing, I would not have talked to him. You know, like somebody's driving the car in a snow blizzard, you just don't chit chat."
Miller said she does remember "everything" about the procedure.
"I think what got to me most was the sound," she admits. "Because you can hear it internally in your ears, and I have nice, little, pretty ears that I think my dad glued back with Band-Aids as I was growing up so they wouldn’t stick out. ... Anyway, I could hear that [crunching] and the whatever, knife? I don't know, whatever you suck the stuff out with, yes. I could hear it internally in my head. That's it."
Still, she couldn't be happier with the results, explaining that she used to airbrush out her wrinkles and was also self-conscious about her neck.
"When I look into the mirror, and I'm doing my own makeup it's like, 'Oh, OK,'" she says about her confidence after the facelift. "You're working on a better surface. My neck was, like, hanging and everyone has that double chin and it's awful and now I don't really have it, do I?"
Check out Miller before her facelift:
... and after her facelift:
Later, Miller also talked with ET about any advice she could possibly give Lori Loughlin in case the Full House star gets sentenced to jail time for her alleged role in the college admissions scandal. Miller spent eight months at the Federal Correctional Complex in Victorville, California, after she pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud in June 2016. She was released in March 2018. Miller said two prison consultants were hired for her, but they weren't helpful at all.
"I don't think that any of the prison 'consultants’ know what they are talking about," Miller says. "I think they've been out for so long that what happened to them is completely different. They told me a bunch of stuff that was totally wrong. ... They prepare you and everything they told me was wrong. Completely wrong."
"People think that you're gonna come out very humble and a different person -- that doesn't happen," she adds of her prison experience. "You know, for the first two months, I was sweet and nice. Then the next two months, it was all normal and then by the last two months, I was the real Abby Lee. 'Pick your feet up when you walk, don't say 'at' at the end of a question, it's a preposition!' Like, I was like a nightmare and that's to the guards."
She also has a note for Kim Kardashian West, who's been making headlines for her criminal justice reform work.
"I think as far as the whole prison thing goes, I don't know. Kim Kardashian, if you are out there, call me, please," she says. "Because we need prison reform. All of these women in there getting a roof over their head, three meals a day, a job, they're learning to be plumbers and HVAC repairmen. It's a joke. It's all ridiculous."
For more of Miller's candid advice, watch the video below:
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