Jessi Ngatikaura Admits She Had an ‘Identity Crisis’ While Healing From Recent Facial Surgery

Jessi Ngatikaura is getting candid about her recent facial surgery.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star sat down in front of her camera, posting a GRWM video on Jan. 14 to give fans and followers an update into a recent facial surgery she had.

Back in December, Ngatikaura, 33, revealed that she had undergone a facial surgery in a video posted on Dec. 23.

In the clip, which showed some of the before and after elements of her recovery from the surgery, Ngatikaura could be seen wearing a medical gown as she sat on top of a table in a doctor’s office. The video then cut to a shot of Ngatikaura lying in a bed, with her face fully bandaged up and wearing goggles over her eyes.

In this most recent video, Ngatikaura opened up about the details of her surgery, including what procedures she ultimately had done — as well as what the recovery process has looked like over the last three weeks.

“I feel like I have to preface every single video I post lately with the fact that I am extremely swollen still,” Ngatikaura began, as she clipped her hair back and began to apply makeup to her face.

She then revealed that her most recent procedure involved both an upper and lower blepharoplasty, as well as some facial fat grafting.

She went on to clarify that the appearance of her face in the video was not her final result, and that the swelling she was experiencing would go down in time.

“I just don’t think there’s any surgery, especially on your face, that you would look completely done in three weeks,” she said.

Ngatikaura then went on to talk about some of the other things she’s dealt with in the weeks following her surgery.

“Healing is a process,” she said, before adding, “I’m not gonna lie, the healing process has really messed with me.”

She even went as far as to say that, while she knew what to expect before going into her surgery, it had still felt “like an identity crisis when you look in the mirror and you don’t look like yourself.”

The Mormon wife then shared that she underwent the surgery because she had some issues with “creasing” while applying eyeshadow, and that she felt certain areas of her face looked “hollow” after losing weight and dissolving her facial fillers.

She admitted that one of the more difficult aspects of the recovery was wearing goggles for “two days straight,” leaving her unable to see anything.

“I have done a video of my recovery process of, like, what my face looked like the first few weeks, and it is terrifying,” she also admitted. “I’m honestly debating posting it cause I know I’m gonna get a lot of hate, but I also want people to, like, know what to expect.”

However, despite some of the uncomfortable moments she encountered, she said that she was “so happy” she had gone through with it.

Ngatikaura also said it would be about five to six weeks before “you start to feel like yourself again,” and even longer before it fully settles in.

She touched on the response she had received to her original post announcing her surgery.

“I just think it’s so funny that people were, like, freaking out that I did something to my face, because this is essentially the same thing as getting filler,” she said. “I do look scary, I do look different, and I understand people like pointing that out and being concerned, but the thing with plastic surgery is it’s everyone’s own prerogative.”

“What I’ve realized from getting a lot of hate comments from everything from my looks to my relationship to my personality to my friendships, is when people comment negative things, it’s usually a projection of what they’ve been through in their life or what they’re currently going through,” she said, adding “I have to delete comments every single day about my appearance on my post.”

Ngatikaura also addressed claims that she had been trying to look more like her SLOMW co-star Demi Engemann.

“My response to that is that people have said we look alike from day one when the show came out,” she said. “So if I’m changing things, maybe I’m trying to look less like her. And also, my fake face looks like her fake face. We both had stuff done, so it’s just kind of what it is.”

She ended by promising she would keep her fans updated on the healing process throughout the healing timeline, which she estimated would take between six months and a year.