South Korean Woman Spends Over $210,000 on 400 Plastic Surgeries in 15 Years

A South Korean woman has reportedly spent over 300 million won—around $210,000—on more than 400 cosmetic and aesthetic procedures over the past 15 years, in a dramatic physical transformation that has sparked widespread attention across Korean media and social platforms.
Appearing on the popular tvN STORY show “It’s Okay to Be a Martian,” Gil Lee-won opened up about her long journey with plastic surgery, which began in 2010 while she was preparing for her college entrance exams.
Bullied and criticized by her ex-boyfriend!
During that period, Gil said she gained some weight and became the target of teasing and body-shaming comments. Things escalated when a former boyfriend began to constantly criticize her looks, which, according to her, shattered her self-esteem and ultimately pushed her to completely change her appearance.
Gil didn’t reveal what her first surgery was, but described it as a major “turning point”—a moment that opened the door to countless other aesthetic procedures. Since then, she has undergone hundreds of surgeries and refinements that reshaped both her face and body.
“My boyfriend, whom I dated between the ages of 27 and 30, constantly criticized my appearance—it destroyed my confidence,” Gil recalled. “I wanted to transform myself completely. Still, I don’t regret having plastic surgery. Now, I feel confident about how I look.”
Listing the procedures she has undergone over the past 15 years, Gil mentioned a staggering range of treatments: forehead fat grafting, ear reshaping, double eyelid surgery, eye correction, multiple nose jobs, philtrum reduction, chin and facial contouring, dimple creation and removal, lip fillers and dissolving, shoulder fillers, levator scapulae botox, neck wrinkle fillers, collarbone fillers, buttock acupuncture, full-body liposuction revisions, intravenous stem cell injections, and various skin treatments.
“If you count all the surgeries and dermatology visits, I’ve had about 400 treatments in total,” she said. “It didn’t happen all at once—it just added up over the years.”
Although she still notices features she would like to change, Gil said she has decided to follow the advice of a doctor from a liposuction clinic, who warned her not to become “too greedy” and instead focus on maintaining her current figure. Still, she admits she visits dermatology and oriental medicine clinics almost daily to keep her skin and overall look fresh.
Gil Lee-won’s story highlights South Korea’s growing obsession with physical perfection—and raises a deeper question: how far can a person reshape their body in search of self-acceptance?