The fading scars on Lisa Jeynes’ face tell a remarkable story of a woman who was feted then hated by millions.
They reveal her physical hell after a photo shoot went horribly wrong, leaving her needing
reconstructive surgery .
And they explain the enduring mental battle as Lisa clawed her life back from the ruinous clutches of accidental fame.
The Big Brother star was one of the first overnight celebrities, thrust naively into the limelight as reality TV hit its height in 2003.
She graced front pages around the world and had wannabe boyfriends queueing up.
But when her moment of fame was over, battered Lisa, 49, was left longing for public
approval and drowning her sorrows in a bottle.
At her lowest ebb she desperately slurped bottles of red wine through a straw because she was unable to move her jaw.
“I never got what I was looking for,” she said of BB. “It ruined my life.”
And single Lisa warned reality stars – particularly on ITV’s sex-filled Love Island – that they risk losing all respect by demeaning themselves in front of the cameras.
Lisa’s rollercoaster ride in the public eye brought fame, fun, then despair and agony. Big Brother catapulted her into the limelight – amid false rumours she was born a man.
Tearfully looking back, she said: “My life was pretty much over after Big Brother.
“Being told on the front page of every paper that you’re ugly or you used to be a man, you don’t really get over that.
“It destroyed me. I was getting so much abuse and death threats I was too frightened to go out. I was trying to prove I was a girl
by dating all the cads possible after rumours I was a transsexual. I was trying to prove I was a good person after everyone hated me.
“I tried to prove I could be attractive by having plastic surgery and doing photo shoots. I was yearning for acceptance from a public that deep down I wished didn’t even know my name.
"I never wanted fame and it destroyed me. It was a huge mistake and it has taken 14 years to be able to talk about how dark it got at times. It still hurts to do it now.”
Welsh-born Lisa was on the fourth Series of BB, seen by six million Channel 4 viewers.
She was dubbed “Lisa the geezer” after, she claims, a producer leaked a fake birth certificate to boost viewing figures.
TV housemates were filmed peeking under the bathroom door to see if she urinated standing up.
And the bullying didn’t stop there as she was branded the “most hated woman in Britain”. After leaving BB, she embarked on a string of affairs with the likes of Princess Diana’s former lover James Hewitt.
She was also linked to soccer’s Paul Gascoigne, 50, and Lee Sharpe, 46, and reportedly had an earlier fling with Man United star Ryan Giggs, 43.
But the champagne showbiz lifestyle also had devastating effects.
Lisa added: “I suffered severe depression. I didn’t want to be famous but I had so much to prove I kept trying to turn it around and it kept getting worse.
“I wish I could turn to anyone thinking of going on reality TV and say ‘Don’t do it, think about your future’. When the 15 minutes of fame is over and you’ve been on TV having sex or using bad language, how are you going to be taken seriously in any other job?”
Lisa was 35 – and with a degree in psychology – when she became one of BB’s oldest housemates. She had a job in event management and a happy-go-lucky lifestyle.
But after two weeks in the house Lisa was evicted to a chorus of boos – an instant hate figure. Heartless jibes about her appearance prompted her to turn to plastic surgery and she was filmed going under the knife to straighten her nose.
“I was such a confident person before going on Big Brother,” said Lisa. “I thought I could handle it because I trained in psychology and the show was meant to be a psychological experiment.
"But I never expected the way it turned out. I wouldn’t have had my nose done if it wasn’t for the abuse – I felt the need to change. Reality TV can cause a lot of damage. You question everything because you are there as a target.”
Months after BB she met former Army major Hewitt, 59, famed for his affair with Princess Diana.
Lisa said: “He was funny, caring and a gentleman. We clicked, we did fall in love. And he treated me like a princess.”
They dated for over a year but separated amid claims Hewitt cheated on Lisa while she was recovering from breast enlargement surgery. Her fling with Gazza three years later was a flop as they struggled to get intimate as a result of his drinking problems.
She explained: “I would take the booze away from him. He was so damaged. It wasn’t a love thing, I was more trying to look after him.”
A lingerie photoshoot in 2006 was billed as Lisa’s big comeback. She recalled: “I was a size 10, gorgeous boobs, lovely hair, GQ material.”
But it all went wrong. As she lay on a rug, a ladder carrying the photographer and his gear crashed down on Lisa’s face, smashing her jaw and palate and fracturing her skull.
It took seven years of operations to rebuild her face and the stress has left Lisa with a heart condition.
She went on: “I remember looking in the mirror for the first time, with no teeth and my face smashed up and I thought: ‘I don’t know if I can get through this.
“I became alcohol dependent after coming off the morphine as nothing else would help the pain. How much more could I go through? I’d been called a man, I’d been called ugly, Britain’s most hated woman and now I’m scarred for life.”
It has taken 11 years for Lisa to find the strength to move on. She hopes to start her own events company and publish her autobiography, revealing her relationships and her battle to survive after BB.
But for now she has some no-nonsense advice for Love Island’s young stars like Chris Hughes , 22, and Olivia Attwood , 26.
She said: “There’s not one person in the villa that I respect, because they should know better. If it was my daughter I’d say ‘You know it can destroy you’.
“So go in, get naked, have sex, act like a drunken bitch and your life is going to fall apart once you get out.”
That’s fighting talk, but if there’s one thing Lisa knows how to do it’s fight.
She added: “I was born with boxing gloves on