Modern Family's Reid Ewing Admits to Plastic Surgery Addiction Due to Body Dysmorphia

Reid Ewing, who is best known for his role as Dylan on ABC’s Modern Family, is opening up about his struggles with body dysmorphic disorder and an addiction to plastic surgery.

The 27-year-old actor got his first surgery when he was 19 and was convinced that one procedure could make him look like Brad Pitt.

“I told the doctor why I felt my face needed cosmetic surgery and told him I was an actor. He agreed that for my career it would be necessary to get cosmetic surgery. He quickly determined that large cheek implants would address the issues I had with my face, and a few weeks later I was on the operating table,” Reid writes in his op-ed piece for the Huffington Post. He unfortunately did not do enough vetting of the doctor and had an awful experience that led him to get a chin implant with a doctor who was even less qualified.

“At this point I was 20 years old. For the next couple of years, I would get several more procedures with two other doctors. Each procedure would cause a new problem that I would have to fix with another procedure,” Reid said.

“At the beginning of 2012, all the isolation, secrecy, depression, and self-hate became too much to bear. I vowed I would never get cosmetic surgery again even though I was still deeply insecure about my looks. It took me about six months before I was comfortable with people even looking at me,” he added. “Of the four doctors who worked on me, not one had mental health screenings in place for their patients, except for asking if I had a history of depression, which I said I did, and that was that. My history with eating disorders and the cases of obsessive compulsive disorder in my family never came up. None of the doctors suggested I consult a psychologist for what was clearly a psychological issue rather than a cosmetic one or warn me about the potential for addiction.”

Reid ended the op-ed piece by saying, “I wish I could go back and undo all the surgeries. Now I can see that I was fine to begin with and didn’t need the surgeries after all.”

Go to HuffingtonPost.com now to read the full letter and see photos of Reid throughout the years in the gallery below.