This article is part of Had I Known, Zikoko’s theme for September 2025, where we explore Nigerian stories of regret and the lessons learnt. Read more Had I Known stories here.
Hannah* saved for years to get the BBL she was sure would change everything. At 25, she finally went through with the procedure, and for a while, it was everything she wanted: compliments, confidence, even new opportunities. But behind the curves came a pain she couldn’t escape and the realisation that surgery couldn’t fix what she carried inside.
As told to Princess
At 25, I decided to change my body.
It wasn’t a spontaneous decision. It was years of looking in mirrors, tugging at dresses, and telling myself, ‘Your shape is wrong.’
I used to call it my triangle bum. Flat at the top, wide at the base, the kind of shape that made jeans gape at the waist and dresses hang like they had lost interest halfway down. On Instagram, every explore page was a parade of curves: tiny waists, round hips, bouncy butts. Compared to them, I felt… unfinished.
I work in real estate. My job is literally to sell appearances: polished houses, tidy brochures, a confident smile that convinces clients this is the home for them. But no matter how well I closed a deal, I never felt good in my own body. I would go home, undress, and think, ‘If only you had the right shape, you would feel complete.’
That was how I convinced myself to get a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL).
The BBL cost me about four million naira at the clinic I decided on. When I took a look at the invoice, I remember my heart jumping. Four million I did not have. It didn’t really matter, though. My mind was made up. So I started saving, crying sometimes as I locked up money in my savings account or into the little envelopes where I stuffed naira notes.
Every night, I would scroll through other women’s before and after posts, women who said their lives turned around after surgery. Some were Nigerian influencers who left Lagos “for holiday” in Turkey and came back “miraculously” transformed. I imagined myself among them, confident, sexy, unstoppable.
For two years, I lived on the barest minimum. I only bought the necessary food, enough not to starve, and relied on my parents’ pots of soup when I visited on weekends. I went nowhere that wasn’t related to work or fully sponsored. When my friends invited me to hang out at bars, I would make up excuses because every cocktail felt like a betrayal of the goal.
Besides my day job, I picked up modelling gigs where I smiled under hot ring lights and ushering jobs where I stood in heels until my legs ached and bruised. I hustled until my body was already exhausted before I ever went under the knife.
When I finally saved up enough, I booked the BBL procedure.
My family was not supportive. We are Christians, and they thought I should be grateful for what God gave me. My mother cried when she found out. My father said, “Daughters of the most high don’t carve themselves up for strangers to look at.” But I told myself this is my life, my body, my money. Every decision was mine.
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and overripe flowers from someone’s bedside.
The nurses were calm, almost too calm, like they had done this a thousand times. My surgeon explained everything again. The benefits: fuller curves, improved confidence, and the chance to feel good in my clothes. The risks: infection, bleeding, fat embolism, which could block blood vessels and cause death, nerve damage, chronic pain, posture changes, and even the possibility of needing future surgeries if the results shifted. He added the small everyday things too: how I would not be able to sit properly for weeks, how my sleep positions would have to change, how recovery was slow and uncomfortable.
I nodded even though my palms were sweating. When they wheeled me in, I closed my eyes and repeated, ‘This will be worth it, this will be worth it.’
And when I woke up groggy and sore, it was…at least for a while.
The first year was a blur of compliments. Clothes hugged me differently. Strangers stared. Men who never noticed me before suddenly wanted to talk.
I cannot lie, my confidence grew. I started posting more photos and closing more real estate deals. At property showings, clients who once dismissed me suddenly listened when I spoke. A man who once brushed me off came back begging me to sell his house.
Brands slid into my DMs offering influencer deals, and I said yes because why not? This was the return on investment. I made more money, took more pictures, and I danced in the mirror. For a while, I thought this was exactly the life I paid for.
But then what I like to call the shadow side arrived.
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It began as a dull ache in my lower back. At first, I blamed recovery. Then I blamed my mattress. Then I blamed city traffic.
But weeks turned into months, and the pain sharpened until it felt like knives twisting in my spine. At night, I would toss from side to side, trying to find a position where the ache loosened its grip. Some nights, I sat up crying quietly into my pillow, whispering “it’s worth it, it’s worth it” until I fell asleep from exhaustion.
I went to the doctor.
He examined me, frowned, and said, “It’s from the weight distribution. Your body is adjusting. Take these painkillers. Don’t sit for long. Try to move more.”
That was it. Painkillers and posture advice for a pain that kept me awake at night, made sitting in traffic feel like punishment, and made every flight an ordeal. I started dreading property showings because while clients were admiring marble floors, I was silently clenching against the ache in my back.
If the pain was private, the gossip was loud.
At first, people were kind. “You look so good.” “Your surgeon did wonders.” But then the whispers began.
“She must be into hookup. Why else would she spend millions just to change her body? BBL? No be say na terminal something.”
On Twitter, I saw threads where anonymous accounts dragged women with BBLs. “BBL girls can’t sit down properly.” “Their nyash dey different colour from their leg.” I knew some of those jokes were aimed at me.
My family’s disapproval grew sharper, too. Mama still wouldn’t talk about it in public. My father once said during Sunday lunch, “Ungratefulness can make God take away even the little He gave you.”
Suddenly, I could not tell who liked me for me and who only saw the curves. Men stared at me like a product, not a person. Even when I laughed or made a smart point, I wondered: Are you seeing me or just the BBL?
The confidence I thought I had bought started to rot from the inside.
Now at 30, I still have the curves.
I still make good money. People still look. The pain is even less. It only flares up a couple of times, and I’ve developed coping mechanisms for it. But regret creeps in whenever my back throbs or when another man’s eyes stick to me like glue.
I regret everything I did to save up for this; thinking one surgery could heal the insecurities I carried since girlhood. I regret that my family looks at me like I lost something precious.
This wasn’t to impress men. I did it to feel better in clothes, to walk into rooms without shame. But instead, I have had to learn to live with pain, judgment, and the uneasy feeling that my body is louder than my voice.
If you are thinking about a BBL, be clear about why. Save more than you think you need because the bills do not end when you leave the clinic. Ask your surgeon blunt questions about complication rates, about revisions, and about what happens if things go wrong.
Most importantly, fix the inside before you fix the outside. Surgery can change your body, but it will not heal the feelings you carry. Sometimes it magnifies them.
Had I known all this at 25, or even the tail end of 22, when I started saving, I would have thought twice before chasing a new shape. Because three years later, I have learned the body heals, but the ache inside and out lingers.
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