Tulisa Contostavlos entered the Australian jungle this week on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! alongside the likes of Coleen Rooney and McFly’s Danny Jones.
The N-Dubz star is one out of 10 campmates hoping to be crowned the next King or Queen of the Jungle this year.
But before the 36-year-old entered camp on Sunday, she opened up about a health condition that has caused her face to swell and left her unable to move it.
Tulisa discusses health condition with Olivia Attwood
Speaking to Olivia Attwood on her So Wrong It’s Right podcast, Tulisa explained: “When I was about 24, I had my first Bell's Palsy attack.”
She said: "So I sat at home and I had a massive burst of inflammation and it went down but my whole face dropped – eye, everything.
"I couldn't move it, my face remained like that for seven months, I didn't go out, I just hid in the house."
Tulisa shared: “As I was coming to the end of the seven months, my face is still not right… I would go and get fillers to try and balance out the symmetry.
Pointing to the sides of her face, she continued: “So I’d be like right, if you put some in that cheek to match the swelling on that cheek and then if you put some here to lift this up so my lip isn’t down there.
“You can imagine the vicious cycle.”
She then said she went around two years without a Bell's Palsy attack which she described as “brilliant”.
But then Tulisa noticed “low-level swelling” that started to happen in the same cheek which “started to get worse” and she would have “tingling sensations like ants crawling in my face.”
The former X Factor judge added: “It was scary, and then what happened was because I had this low-level swelling, I then dissolved all the filler and I would match the inflammation by putting filler in the other side.
“So you have this side swollen and this side is filler to match to the swelling.
“This went up all the way up until this year, so even when I was doing the N-Dubz run, it was at its worst, I constantly felt like my cheek was on fire.
Recommended reading:
- Tulisa shocks campmates after revealing meaning of 'N-Dubz' on I'm A Celebrity
- How to vote in I'm A Celebrity 2024 as ITV makes some big changes
- Coleen Rooney finally addresses Rebekah Vardy drama on I’m A Celebrity
“I had good days and bad days and I’d also on some days take steroids which would bring it down, so you might see an interview and I look normal and then you see another interview and it’s like ‘what the hell is going on with her face’.”
Tulisa then revealed earlier this year she had an ultrasound that detected “three chronically infected cysts” in her cheek, some of which were removed in surgery.
She said the cysts weren’t connected to the filler and that she was awaiting surgery to remove any remaining which will hopefully bring down the swelling in her cheeks even further.
House Rules
We do not moderate comments, but we expect readers to adhere to certain rules in the interests of open and accountable debate.