A glamourous divorcee has admitted spending £15,000 on plastic surgery – so she can take the perfect SELFIE.
Diane Clarke, 63, used to hate looking at photos of herself because she looked much older than her younger pals.
After being horrified by her wrinkles in a wedding shot, she decided that face cream alone was not enough and needed to go under the knife.
Diane has now spent a total of £15,000 on facelifts and botox in order to roll back the years.
To celebrate her new youthful looks, she takes a selfie of her younger-looking face each day.
She said: “When you have pics taken from afar the camera is more forgiving, but I wanted to look good close up too.
“Seeing photos of me compared to my other friends made me feel so insecure. I looked so old but still felt young inside.
“I hated my crow’s feet and when I compared my snaps to my pals’, they all looked so much younger than me.
“I remember walking past a shop window and catching a glimpse of my reflection in it and thinking I looked like my mother. It was horrifying.
“No amount of face cream was ever going to fix those wrinkles. Going under the knife was the only option if I wanted to look as young as I feel.
“The surgeon said he could turn back the clock by at least five years and I was more than happy with that. £5k isn’t much to pay to look good in photos.
“It may have cost £15k for a facelift and botox but it was worth it for the perfect selfie.”
Diane, from Milton Keynes, Bucks., started botox in 2004 at Aurora Clinics in High Wycombe when she was 53.
Despite returning twice a year, costing £170 a time, Diane was shocked at how old she looked when she was snapped at a friend’s wedding in September 2009.
In January 2013 she made the decision to pay £5,000 to go under the knife so that she could take the perfect selfie.
The procedure, called a minimal access cranial suspension facelift, meant two cuts were made in front of each of Diane’s ears before the skin was pulled back.
After two hours she was off the operating table and already admiring her new selfie-ready complexion.
She added: “One particular photo of me at a wedding just tipped me over the edge, it was a proper OMG moment.
“When I looked at my pictures I was horrified. I looked so old and wrinkly, I just couldn’t believe it was me.
“Coming around (from the surgery), it was quite funny to see my face all bandaged up. At first I questioned what I had done.
“But as soon as I was out of hospital and the bandages were off, I was pointing the camera at myself.
“Flicking through my folder of selfies I was absolutely amazed to see I looked about eight years younger.
“I hadn’t told any of my friends that I was having it done, so when they saw me they were all so shocked and kept showering me with compliments.
“They were all so impressed that the surgeon had managed to iron me out.”
Since the surgery, Diane – a retired university PA – has continued to have botox twice a year to ‘top up’ her fresh face.
She is even considering having a second face lift to look even sharper in snaps.
She added: “I know some people might say I’ve been to extreme lengths for the perfect selfie. I do feel very vain but taking selfies is so addictive.”
Her plastic surgeon Adrian Richards, of Aurora Clinics, said: “Modern technologies like selfies are causing us to think and feel differently about our appearance.
“21st century devices and applications are showing us how we actually look, rather than how we think we look.
“Barely a week doesn’t by without me discussing this issue with people who are concerned because of their appearance on their smart phone or tablet.”
