When Nicole Eggert landed a role on Baywatch, she thought she found her dream role, but she was wrong.
“I needed to get away from it,” Eggert, 52, told People.
The actress, who was 18 when she starred as Summer Quinn, left the show after just two seasons, which was just enough time to leave her with emotional and physical scars.
Initially, Eggert didn’t realize the show she auditioned for centered around lifeguards. She believed it was a spin-off about high school kids. So when she learned she would have to film in a bathing suit “all day every day,” she was in shock.
“I was like, ‘Oh, sh*t.’”
“All the girls worked out and were super tiny and fit and I was like ‘Whoops.’ And the one-piece bathing suits were not flattering. I didn’t want to wear it at all.”
Eggert recalled disliking how her chest looked in the iconic red bathing suit.
“When you have to put on that one-piece and it’s like you’re so flat that it’s like pleating,” she continued. “You’re like, ‘What is this?’ Nothing you can do. You can’t stuff it with anything. You can’t do anything.”
But Eggert did do something. While on a break from filming, the teen had breast implants.
“I regret it now, of course.”
After leaving the show she had multiple breast augmentation surgeries, and in 2015 she appeared on Botched where she had her breast size reduced.
In December, Eggert revealed she had been diagnosed with a rare and slow-growing form of breast cancer.
“This journey’s been rough for me. This hasn’t been a breezy sail through life,” she shared. “I always read inspirational quotes and corny stuff, but it gets me through.”
Her next step will be surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiation.
It breaks your heart when you read about actors who felt they needed to change their bodies in order to fit in with the rest of Hollywood.
READ MORE:
- Summer Quinn from ‘Baywatch’ is now a mom of 2 – inside her life 30 years after the show
- Nicole Eggert, ‘Baywatch’ alum, diagnosed with breast cancer, says ‘just get this out of me
