Ash warns of 'trout pout' dangers

Actress Leslie Ash has warned women to beware the perils of cosmetic surgery after her lip enhancement procedure went disastrously wrong.

The star said she had been through hell since implants left her with an over-sized “trout pout”.

Ash, 43, has been publicly ridiculed and even received hate mail from people appalled by her new look.

She maintained there was nothing wrong with having cosmetic surgery and had not been put off having more.

But she told OK! magazine: “If I can just teach people one thing from my mistake, it would be to urge women who want to undergo any kind of treatment to go to a reputable doctor. And also to find out exactly what substances are being injected into you.”

The former Men Behaving Badly star had the treatment, in which polymers are injected into the lips last summer by a foreign surgeon who was recommended by a friend.

She admitted having her lips plumped two years ago but they went unnoticed by the public because they were quite subtle.

Ash said dozens of celebrities opted for the treatment and regarded it as a “total fashion accessory”.

But she told how on this occasion the polymers were injected her in Cupid’s bow, leaving the area between her nose and top lip rock hard.

And she was devastated by the public reaction when pictures of her began appearing in the Press, confessing she had “shed a few tears”.

“I’ve had hate mail – ‘what the hell have you done to yourself?’ – and that is really hurtful,” she said.

“It’s even filtered through to television. Graham Norton was trying to be funny about it but in fact it just turned out to be downright rude.”

Ash insisted some pictures of her had been digitally altered to make her lips look even bigger – even claiming somebody else’s lips had been superimposed on her face.

Now the actress, who is married to club boss and former footballer Lee Chapman, is undergoing corrective treatment with a new doctor to reduce them to something like normal size.