Liz Jones talks to acid attack victim Katie Piper By Liz Jones But as she tells Liz Jones, who famously chose to have elective cosmetic surgery herself "I'd never judge someone who has had a face-lift" Katie Piper and YOU's Liz Jones I feel as though I'm starring in the new L'Oréal campaign. Katie Piper is seated on a stool, buttery hair in soft waves, her greeny-blue eyes reflecting the lights of the camera. I tell her she is beautiful. The compliment is not some patronising platitude: she literally shines. Her skin is like a map not of the world, but of her journey. She has a wide, generous mouth, and when she laughs, which is often, she has an endearing habit of screwing up her eyes so they almost disappear. "Your teeth are perfect," I tell her. She doesn't mind the intimacy, given she used to be a model of sorts and a beauty therapist. She has already been asking about my eyelashes, and I tell her they are only this long as I've been using a serum called M2. I say she should use it too, but she says she can't, as her eyelashes, due to the skin grafts, tend to grow inwards, pricking her eyes, so she has them pulled out. But when you lose your entire face, losing your eyebrows and lashes is nothing. She runs her tongue over her teeth. It turns out they were far from perfect: "They were affected by the acid. And because I couldn't eat for a long time, they deteriorated. I've had them veneered. I lost years in hospital. But I don't have regrets, because I'm happy now' In 2008, her violent ex arranged for a man to throw sulphuric acid in Katie's face on a London street. I tell her the question in my mind is: why? Did he simply want no one else to have her? I wasted a lot of time asking that question, but no one can give you the answer. Some people are just born evil. Attacking with acid is not a religious or cultural thing, it's just violence. The intent is to permanently brand someone and make them feel ashamed. Katie knows about my own plastic surgery - the face-lift, the blepharoplasty, the breast reduction and the procedure that took fat from my thighs and injected it into the backs of my hands - because during her long confinement in hospital, her mum used to bring Katie my column every week. So we both have something in common, which is cosmetic surgery, but we are also poles apart. I tell her I chose to have my breasts reduced aged 29, which left me with terrible scars, "but not terrible in the way your scars are, were..." I'm back-pedalling furiously. Katie Piper scarred from an acid attack in 2008 now runs her own foundation, katiepiperfoundation.org.uk "But maybe you had the surgery to save your life, too," she says. You were attacked, but in a less obvious way. I imagine she means that anorexia, body dysmorphic disorder, acute anxiety and lack of self-esteem are all assaults upon us, though less violent than what happened to Katie. I'm not going to judge someone who has had a face-lift. I had plastic surgery, too, even before the attack. Did she, really? "I had a boob job in my early 20s [she is now 30], so I'm not "anti" it. It's all relative. If someone hates their nose so much that it is stopping them having a relationship, then it's a big problem to them. There is always going to be someone more burnt than me, but that doesn't mean my problems are not worthy enough. The only time I think it's sad is when you have girls of 19 or 20 having anti-ageing procedures and Botox. 'I've got quite a nice bum, I'm slim and I like that about myself' Katie's story was first made very public in the Channel 4 documentary My Beautiful Face. She also appeared on the channel in My Beautiful Friends, where she helped build the confidence of others living with a disfigurement, and was Gok Wan's sidekick in the programme Stripping for Summer. Her new show, a six-part series entitled Undo Me, sees her in the role of presenter. She meets people who have had a tattoo, trout pout or boob job, now regret they ever went under the knife or needle, and want their procedure reversed. They also act as mentors to those about to go under the knife. Is she trying, then, to talk people out of doing stuff to themselves? Not really, just to think it through. A woman of 20, contemplating a tattoo on her face, might not have thought about how she will feel when she gets married. If I went on the show, with my surgically flattened chest, lifted face and immobile Botoxed forehead, would I have to counsel a woman not to have her bits chopped off, or frozen? You might say that having a smaller bust saved your life, made you happier. Perhaps you had no choice. I have that life experience to be able to relate to living in a body that you don't feel matches the person you are inside. In August, the press reported the story of British women Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee, who were attacked with acid while travelling in Zanzibar. Unlike Katie, who sat for an hour in a shop before the ambulance arrived, which meant the acid destroyed her face, left eye, and even her oesophagus, those girls were almost immediately doused with water. Is she in contact with them? I am. I set up a charity [its patron is Simon Cowell] for burns survivors four years ago. Katie (far left) in Marks & Spencer's autumn campaign I spend every Wednesday and Saturday working for it, but I'm not a trained counsellor, more a mentor. We now employ therapists, a social worker, a physiotherapist and a make-up artist. Are the girls suffering, going through what she went through? We are helping them, that's all I can say. Any treatment is confidential. Was Katie helped with counselling? The woman who helped me most had been burned in the Paddington railway disaster. She came to my house, talked to me about wearing the mask. That gave me a lot of hope early on. Katie's left eye is still cloudy: she has had a corneal transplant, and can now see light and dark, and shapes. I tell her when I read that her parents, David, a barber, and Diane, a teacher, offered to donate their own eyes and skin I was incredibly moved. They put their lives on hold for me. I had a corneal transplant and stem-cell surgery. I have to insert my own blood plasma, so every quarter I go to a plasma bank where they take blood, spin it and strip it, and then I keep it in the freezer and use as drops four times a day. I've forgotten what it was like to have perfect sight - you just adapt. I can drive now! Is she worried how her face will age? I don't think I will get conventional wrinkles, but I'll probably go crepey. I'm like a normal woman in that I will get a hair on my chin and pluck it out, and I will squeeze spots. I have mirrors in every room, and I carry a mirror for my eye drops. I know my face isn't symmetrical, but I've got quite a nice bum, I'm slim and I like that about myself. When I go on holiday, I still wear the smallest bikini I can find. Yes, I have scars, but other people have cellulite and thread veins. But, yeah, I am careful: I wear factor 50 all the time, I don't really exfoliate my face as that hurts. I use high-end products, as my skin gets quite dry. You are supposed to massage scar tissue to stop it getting tight, so I do that too. Was she surprised to be chosen as a model in the latest M&S campaign? I really loved doing that, and, yes, I do wear M&S. And Reiss and Topshop and Lipsy. She seems such a positive person, but does she still have dark days? In the beginning, I had really bad mental health problems and such post-traumatic stress that I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't trust anybody and I had to have a lot of psychological help. When I was ill I didn't have a job or a purpose - and your confidence is even worse because you feel like nothing so you dress like nothing. But even now, sometimes I struggle, yes. But to feel sorry for myself would be ungrateful to so many people who have helped me. Has she forgiven the men who did this? I had a nurse on my ward who was a Christian, and she would pray with me, sing with me. When I came out of hospital I was agoraphobic. I didn't go out for a year. Then someone suggested I go to church. To be honest, I went because I felt they wouldn't judge me. I still pray, but I don't go to church now. She hasn't really answered the question, so I ask if she is a nicer person now. I've got more empathy and tolerance. And more genuine confidence than I did before, but then I was 24 when it happened. I've become, not ruthless, but more assertive, and I think that makes you more attractive. When you have confidence to not let people treat you in a certain way, you become more sexy. Katie was initially in hospital for seven weeks, and had to wear a plastic face mask to avoid infection for the next two years. She was put into an induced coma for 12 days at her worst point; she was simply in too much pain. She wrote a note to her mum, asking her to kill her. Is she in favour, then, of assisted suicide? "I was in a high-dependency unit, I was blind in both eyes and the police were trying to get statements off me; I wrote on a piece of paper asking my mum to kill me because I thought, "No one's been arrested [both men are now serving life sentences], I'm blind, they are going to break into the hospital and attack me," and I wanted to die rather than go through that again. I did have a very low time, but there is a difference between not wanting to carry on and planning a suicide. The prospect of never having a boyfriend again must have been a worry. I've got a younger sister, Suzy, and she was in a serious relationship, and my brother Paul got married at that time so, yeah, it was prominent in my mind - not just would someone want to go out with me because I'm disfigured, but would someone want to go out with me because I've got a psychopath attached to me as well? She currently has a boyfriend, but won't reveal who he is. They live together in London. He's just a normal guy in a normal job. But I will tell you this: he's the most handsome man I've ever gone out with. She smiles. It turns out she is pregnant. No wonder she radiated light and happiness during our photo shoot. Her children, I say, will not judge her. But she looks troubled: "When they are young, yes, but when they start going to school, they will notice I'm different to other mums. That is the thing with disfigurement: there are stages in your life when you are OK with it, then you might relapse. I want my children to volunteer at the workshops we run. I want them to be aware and tolerant. Katie tells me she's eating healthily, having dropped to five stone; one of the worst aspects of the attack was being fed through a tube for a year: "I lost a lot of hair due to malnutrition. I had down on my body and horrible breath. Even though she has had more than 200 procedures, more are planned: she will have nasal reconstruction to help with breathing, and as her eyelids contract, they will turn inside out, and have to be corrected. Her oesophagus narrows as the scar tissue hardens, so she keeps having to have it widened. I tell her the pain I felt after my face-lift seems like nothing now. Yeah, people think it's frivolous to have something done, but it's not something most women enter into lightly. You have to be desperate. Katie is now so famous, people must come up to her on the street? I jump if men appear out of nowhere. You can become paranoid. I wish a beauty brand would make her their face, or that Vogue would put her on the cover. But even so, Katie now has an amazing career on TV, writes self-help books, and was chosen to carry the flame into the stadium to open the Paralympics. Does she look back and think that the attack was a blessing in disguise? It still affects my health. I would like to reverse the hurt and pain it put my parents through. But I don't have regrets, because I'm happy now. I know other bad things will happen to me. I have moved on. People think I don't have normal worries, but I do. I'm not always thinking, "Ooh, my skin! I'm burnt. I'm usually just thinking, "Oh no, my hair's gone all flat!"" katiepiperfoundation.org.uk; Undo Me will air on Channel 4 early next year