Doja Cat is delving into her insecurities, specifically why she opted for liposuction on her thighs and butt in 2023. She explains that she may be unknowingly suffering from lipedema, a progressive condition that causes abnormal fat buildup in the lower part of the body. "Lipedema runs in my family," the rapper shared in a March 9 TikTok video. "I always thought it was just cellulite."
Looking back, Doja Cat (real name Amala Dlamini) says her legs and bottom began to fill out in her early teenage years, though she continued to maintain a "little waist." "It wasn't a horrible thing," she continues. "I just felt like it stuck out. I had big ass knees."
In fact, Doja Cat recalls being ridiculed for her thicker legs, including an incident where she was looking to have a custom latex suit made for her "Go to Town" music video, only for the manufacturer to tell her, "'Your measurements aren't real.'" The Grammy winner also revealed that someone once joked that she looked like SpongeBob SquarePants' Squidward after eating Krabby Patties, which caused the fat to go straight to his thighs. "That's what lipedema looks like," she explained. "I wasn't horrendously, deeply overweight or anything. I was just building up all this ass, ankle, calves, knee, and thigh."
Guessing that she was "probably at stage 1 or stage 2" of the disease when she underwent liposuction, Doja Cat continued, "I had no clue, and nobody brought up lipedema to me." Now, the "Paint the Town Red" artist says her butt "looks kind of weird" from "the history of having all that ass." "That's due to all the extra skin from when I had all that extra fat," she noted. "I love wearing tights because it keeps all of that together."
Doja Cat added, "It's a slippery slope—liposuction and things like that—but I guess it's just lymphatic buildup and there are a lot of things you can do to help with that."
