Pictures of the Mexican cabaret star Lin May have gone viral online. In the photos, the actress, dancer, and former stripper looks like a doll—her eyes are unnaturally positioned, her lips are excessively swollen, her face is puffy, and her skin tone is unnaturally dark. Lin May’s images have circulated especially widely on a well‑known public forum.
“This is the dancer Lin May—once Mexico’s sex symbol, now she looks like this…” wrote the forum administrator beneath the photos. For comparison, they also posted images of Lin May in her youth. In the 1970s, she was truly a super‑sexy woman, and her blend of Chinese and Mexican heritage made her enormously appealing to audiences. It’s no wonder she was called “the goddess of love” in her homeland. It turns out that the doll‑like face has a tragic backstory.
At first, Lin treated her cheekbones and chin with advanced cosmetics. But at age 30, she was approached by a doctor who promised to smooth out her wrinkles with collagen injections. The doctor turned out to be a fraud, injecting a mixture of vegetable oil, baby oil, and water under her skin. The result was horrific hardening in her face that remains visible today. She underwent plastic surgery, but the surgeons only made matters worse.
True, the doctors removed some of the oil, but Lin’s face remained permanently disfigured. Over the years (she is now 71) she endured more operations, and eventually she came to resemble a doll. The scars on her face are a reminder of her quest for beauty and eternal youth.
