Trip to Vaughan illegal cosmetic clinic years ago leads to lifelong pain

In a series of stories and in an upcoming documentary, CityNews is sharing the stories of women—literally fighting for their lives. They went to an underground cosmetic clinic to receive butt injections in Vaughan and are still dealing with the aftermath.

CityNews first introduced you to Brittany Rowe, who lives in Scarborough, in 2022. “I just made a huge mistake, and now I’m paying for it,” She told us during that interview.

That mistake was going to a Vaughan home back in 2016 after hearing about a registered nurse named Anna Yakubovsky-Rositsan. “She told me that I was very, very skinny,” Rowe recalls. “And she just wanted to fix me up and make me look better.”

Brittany agreed to get what she thought was an injection of PMMA, a substance used to enhance the buttocks. It’s legal now, but at the time was not in Canada.

Months later, in April of 2017, another of Yakubovsky’s clients, 23-year-old Chanel Steben, died from that same procedure.

According to results from Steben’s autopsy, silicone and mineral oil were found in her body, not PMMA, which ultimately lead to her death. The news hit Rowe especially hard.

“When I heard Chanel died, I thought for sure those same substances were in my body, I was worried I was going to die next,” Rowe said.

Liquid silicone is illegal and very dangerous. While she survived, Rowe is still dealing with health issues, nearly eight years after the procedure.

“I still have those foreign substance in my body,” she shared. “I haven’t been able to get it removed yet because no doctor in the [U.S.] and no doctor in Canada would touch me.”

After CityNews’ original story on Rowe aired, she was able to connect with Dr. Sean Rice, a renowned plastic surgeon based in Toronto.

“I think if you had an illegal substance injected into your body, It would be terrifying to anyone not knowing what that’s going to cause down the road,” Dr. Rice said. “In Brittany’s case, the silicone has migrated through her backside, which makes any procedure to remove it tricky.”

In an upcoming documentary, “Make Me Look Pretty”, airing on Citytv, we follow Rowe’s journey as she works with Dr. Rice to get the help she needs.

We’ll also meet other women going through similar challenges.

“I went to so many hospitals and plastic surgeons, but no one in Canada wanted to operate on me because this product wasn’t legal and they didn’t know what to do,” said Nada, another woman in the documentary who also received illegal injections from Yakubovsky-Rositsan.

“I had to fly myself all the way to Colombia to get the product removed.” But even that didn’t work as she had planned. The documentary explains the complications these women still face years after their visit to that Vaughan home.

It gives you a personal look inside their lives as they navigate the unknown and learn from the mistakes made.

“I would never do another procedure, at least not from someone that has no credentials to back it up,” Rowe told us. “I’m good. I did the one and it didn’t go as planned. Now, I just want my health back.”

“Make Me Look Pretty” will air on Sunday January 28 at 10 p.m. E.T. on Citytv