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.
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 choPl !! Lesson for the Ladies !!