"pancake" booty, Apryl Michelle Brown had always
been insecure about her backside. Once she got
enough money, she told herself, she'd buy herself a
better one. "I didn't know if I wanted to look like
Janet Jackson or J. Lo," the Los Angeles
cosmetologist, 46, says in an exclusive interview
featured in the November issue of ESSENCE
magazine. "I just wanted a new, bigger booty."
Tragically, her quest for curves cost her all her limbs
and almost her life.
In 2004, Brown says she paid a "pumper," an
unlicensed person, to inject industrial-grade silicone
into her buttocks. Brown can't recall how much the
woman actually charged — maybe $500, maybe
$1,000 — but over time, she says, the area became
intensely irritated and painful, and the skin
blackened. By early 2006 she says the silicone had
hardened, causing severe pain and infection,
ultimately requiring her to have lifesaving
amputation of her limbs last year.
Now adjusting to her new life with prosthetics,
Brown shares her story — and her warning for
others tempted to check out "pumping parties" —
with writer Amy Elisa Keith in ESSENCE. "I was left
here for a purpose," she says. "I have to get the
word out so that nobody else makes this choice.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
