1000-Lb. Best Friends’ Vannessa Cross Wants a BBL After 250-Lb. Weight Loss: 'Addicted to Plastic Surgery' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Vannessa Cross before and after her weight loss.Photo:TLC

TLC

Vannessa Crosscan’t wait to accomplish the next goal on her impressive weight loss journey.

Ahead of the season 3 premiere, the1000-Lb. Best Friendsstar opened up to PEOPLE and revealed that following her 250-lb. weight loss, she was finally approved for skin removal surgery. Now, the 46-year-old says she is “addicted to plastic surgery” and has her eyes on a BBL for her next procedure.

“Life has changed immensely for me, from being 450 and now I am under 200 lbs.,” she tells PEOPLE. “I actually go to the gym. I actually eat extremely healthy foods. I never saw myself living a healthy lifestyle and here I am.”

“I had Betsy May chopped off, honey!” she says while waving her arms in the air. “She gone! She’s swimming somewhere!”

Vannessa Cross before she gets skin surgery.TLC

Cross admits that it was scary and frustrating being told no again and again. She was starting to accept that her excess skin would be a permanent part of her.

“All I wanted was to be normal,” she says. “When I lost all my weight but still had that hanging skin, going to gym, every time I ran, you heard the fat roll slapping. People would look. You’re wearing a tank top and you got your bat wings hanging down and they hear ‘pap pap pap.’”

“Now I get to go to the gym and run and have no issues whatsoever. That is amazing,” she continues. “I actually live life now. Instead of being the big person that’s just existing, I’m living.”

Since the surgery, Cross says she’s trying to strengthen and tone the muscles in her arms and stomach where the excess skin was removed.

However, her next and “biggest goal” is to get aBrazilian butt lift, a procedure that uses “fat transfer techniques to achieve a fuller, rounder buttock contour,” according to theAmerican Board of Cosmetic Surgery.

“I’m a little bit addicted to plastic surgery because my healing was extremely easy and painless. So my next goal is a BBL. I want my Brazilian butt lift,” she says. “You know, white girl, no butt ever in my life. Mommy and daddy didn’t have butt, so I’m going to need my plastic surgeon to give me one of them pretty little round booties.”

Vannessa Cross.TLC

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Even before the BBL, Cross boasts that her confidence level is through the roof and continuing to rise.

“I feel like I am the baddest woman alive and can’t nobody touch me. I love being able to walk out the door every day and hold my head up high knowing I am somebody,” she tells PEOPLE. “Yes, maybe I was somebody at 450 lbs., but I was somebody that just wanted to stay hidden. Now Vannessa’s out there, honey! I want the world to see me. I’m happy. I’m healthy.”

Feeling her best, Cross says she can’t wait for fans to see her journey to approval for skin removal surgery in the upcoming season 3 of1000-Lb. Best Friends.

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In PEOPLE’s exclusive clip of the premiere, Cross shows off all the non-scale victories she’s accomplished since losing the weight. She can’t believe that she can actually bend her legs enough to reach down and put on a pair of socks.

“I reach monumental goals every day that people of regular and average size have lived with every day of their life,” she said in the clip. “I can just stand up and walk. Getting out of bed. I don’t have to have a bedside toilet. I don’t have to wear diapers anymore.”

In the clip, Cross added that she also loves fitness now, and goes to the park to work out on her own. However, she struggles to do jumping jacks and high knees because of her excess skin.

“My confidence is getting stronger, but I do feel way more self-conscious when it comes to all my skin, all my flabs,” she shared while tucking her excess skin into her leggings. “Miss Betsy May, you make this hard, man.”

“The way it looks, it’s not sexy, it’s not cute. Let’s keep it 100. I just feel like an old woman because of everything,” she said. “So I’m hoping and hoping and hoping to get approved for skin surgery in the next few weeks.”

Cross added in the clip, “I have been maintaining my weight so [fingers crossed].”

The season 3 premiere of 1,000-Lb. Best Friendsairs Tuesday, October 22 at 10pm ET/PT on TLC and discovery+.

source: people.com