Women are sounding the alarm over dangerous ‘butt shots’ once loved by rapper Cardi B, which some say have left them with rotting backsides.
Injectable biopolymers, a natural alternative to plastic, aims to give the patient a curvier, perkier backside without the strains of surgery.
And celebrities like Cardi B, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta star K. Michelle, and Blac Chyna have all received them at one point.
The types of fillers used to create the knockoff BBL look are FDA approved, but only for the face, and using them on the buttocks puts people at risk of side effects the injectables’ developers never tested for.
Now, a growing number of women are having the plastic-like substance removed after severe adverse reactions, including rotting tissue.
Helen Arias thought she was getting vitamin injections to make her legs curvier. Years later, she found out they were biopolymers that were causing her skin to die. Photo courtesy of Ms Arias
Ms Arias had to have biopolymers surgically removed from her legs. She was able to see a celebrated Miami surgeon free of charge. Photo courtesy of Ms Arias
Helen Arias, 44, had been inundated with advertisements for a new type of vitamin shot that claimed to increase fullness in the thighs and buttocks.
The mother-of-two had always been on the skinnier side, and thought the injections would give her bottom half a curvier appearance.
She visited a clinic in Florida that advertised the shots, but while she thought she was receiving vitamins, she actually was injected with biopolymers.
Ms Arias said: ‘I thought it would give me confidence so I got three shots in each leg.
‘Everything was fine and I started exercising and noticed my legs get bigger.’
But a year after getting the shots, she noticed discoloration where they had been administered.
She monitored the spots for years but did not see a doctor about them, even though they gradually worsened.
Ms Arias said: ‘It caused my leg to go black. It was necrosis – it looked like rotting meat and had bumps all over it.
‘I was looking for answers for years and then a clinic I went to told me I had biopolymers in me – not vitamins.’
Her pain was unbearable. A light bump on the coffee table would drive her to tears. She couldn’t play with her children and even had to tell them not to touch her due to the agonizing discomfort.
The surgery to remove biopolymers from Ms Arias’ legs left her with a massive scar. Photo provided by Ms Arias
Ms Arias said she met with Miami-based plastic surgeon Dr Narayanan Nair, who had not injected the biopolymers years prior. The doctor agreed to remove the small balls of polymers accumulating throughout her bottom half free of charge.
Ms Arias said Dr Nair saved her life.
She said: ‘I had the surgery last year and he got pretty much all of the biopolymers out of my leg.
‘Now I have it out of my body, I feel better. The discoloration has gone and I’m starting to get my life back together.’
Meanwhile, Rosangela Dubraska, 48, of Utah, visited a clinic in Venezuela to knowingly get injections of biopolymers in 2008. She was looking for a confidence boost after the changes her body had undergone during her second pregnancy.
She said: ‘The girls in my gym had done biopolymer injections and looked great. So I did it.’
For about 10 years, everything was fine. She was happy with her results, and she remained healthy.
But around 2018, her skin started to change color, morphing from red to purple. Her hands swelled, she suffered headaches and stabbing pains in her pelvis and leg, and couldn’t sit for long due to pain in her back.
Ms Dubraska said: ‘It became so bad I got insomnia and the only thing that cured the pain was morphine. I asked doctors for help but they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me.’
Rosangela Dubraska underwent the injections to perk up her backside after her second pregnancy in 2008 and was happy with her results for about 10 years. Then, she noticed discoloration around her backside and started to experience severe pain. Photo courtesy of Ms Dubraska
Ms Dubraska, shown here, had the biopolymers surgically removed and is now completely pain-free. Photo courtesy of Ms Dubraska
Ms Dubraska also saw Dr Nair to remedy her extreme pain.
Just as he did for Ms Arias, Dr Nair performed an MRI and found multiple small balls embedded in her glute tissue, causing damage there.
She said: ‘Dr Nair confirmed that the biopolymers had spread around my body and were causing my pain.’
Dr Nair performed surgery to remove the tiny balls of biopolymers in February 2024, and since then, her pain and discoloration have disappeared.
The effects of biopolymers can extend beyond the original site of injection and migrate due to sitting, exercising, and gravity, which can lead to the material spreading to the hips, legs, thighs, and lower back.
The lymphatic system may also carry biopolymers to other parts of the body, which can lead to inflammation and the formation of lumps in other areas of the body.
This can cause widespread tissue damage, nerve damage, respiratory issues, and organ failure.
Ms Rosangela, for instance, experienced pain and inflammation in her hands and lower back.
The severe reactions both women suffered were caused by an inadequate supply of oxygen-rich blood getting to the tissues in their rear and legs, causing tissue death.
When biopolymers are injected into tissues, they can compress blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the affected area. Insufficient blood supply deprives tissues of oxygen and nutrients, leading to necrosis.
Necrosis can lead to severe inflammation in other parts of the body as the immune system becomes overwhelmed trying to fight infection. In most circumstances, this can lead to fever and sepsis, a deadly condition in which the immune system launches a full scale attack against the body itself while fighting off a bacterial infection.
Sepsis can cause organ failure, memory problems, delirium, muscle weakness, tissue death, skin infections, and, in one in five people, death.
Cardi b said: ‘In August I got surgery and I removed 95% of my biopolymers… if you don’t know what it is, it’s a** shots. It was a really crazy process,’ she said in an Instagram live video this month. Photo courtesy of her Instagram profile
Rapper Cardi B first spoke in 2022 about the biopolymers she had injected into her buttocks in 2014 but later admitted she had about 95 percent of them removed.
She used her experience to issue a cautionary tale to her fans looking to perk up their behinds.
She said: ‘It was a really crazy process. All I’m going to say is that if you’re young, if you’re 19, 20, 21, and sometimes you’re too skinny, and you be like, “[Oh my god,] I don’t have enough fat to put in my a**,” so you [resort] to ass shots, don’t!’
In 2018, she revealed she had received illegal silicone (not a biopolymer) injections in her bottom in a basement in Queens, New York at a discounted cost of $800.
The true number of people going for filler is unclear, but is likely lower than the roughly 821,000 augmentation procedures using implants and fat grafting performed in 2022.
Cardi B said: ‘It was the craziest pain ever. I felt like I was gonna pass out. I felt a little dizzy. And it leaks for, like, five days.’
