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Justin Jedlica and Valeria LukyanovaLiving Barbie and Ken |
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The Living Barbie and Ken
Meet the Human Dolls27-year-old Valeria Lukyanova, with her long, bleached hair, impossibly tiny waist, and ample bust, flew from her hometown of Odessa, Ukraine to New York City to meet 32-year-old Justin Jedlica, who, by all appearances, is made almost entirely of silicone implants, for an episode of Inside Edition.
Sometimes childhood dreams do come true – American Justin Jedlica and Ukrainian Valeria Lukyanova, the living embodiments of the iconic dolls, finally met in person. However, these living counterparts to Ken and Barbie didn’t exactly hit it off as well as their plastic prototypes. Even in photos, it’s clear that they were uncomfortable in each other’s presence. Both models have dramatically altered their appearances through the wonders of modern plastic surgery, and they both pride themselves on looking more like the popular dolls than real people.
The Odessa Barbie
Valeria Lukyanova, the 27-year-old with long, bleached hair, an implausibly tiny waist, and ample bust, flew from her hometown of Odessa, Ukraine to New York City to meet 32-year-old Justin Jedlica, who, by all appearances, is made almost entirely of silicone implants, for an episode of Inside Edition. However, Valeria failed to find common ground with her male counterpart – especially after Justin had the audacity to remark last year that, with all that makeup and non-natural hair, Lukyanova looked more like a transvestite than a real-life Barbie. The Odessa native returned the compliment, remarking after their meeting that Jedlica had overdone it with his lips.
The Man Behind Ken
Justin Jedlica rose to a degree of notoriety last year when it was reported that he had spent over $100,000 on plastic surgeries. This year, he went under the surgeon’s knife for the landmark 100th time – and he has no plans to stop, as he sees self-improvement as a never-ending process. Justin’s brand of creativity is expressed through his body. He has had no fewer than five nose jobs, revisions to his brow bone, and silicone implants in his cheeks, lips, chin, and buttocks. Even those enviable pecs and six-pack abs aren’t the result of years of sweating it out at the gym, but are instead the work of artificial sculpting. Justin’s first rhinoplasty took place when he was just 18 years old, and he has apparently developed an expensive and potentially life-ruining habit since then, as he reports feeling euphoric while having himself altered. Explaining his motivations for wanting to look like a plastic doll, Justin once remarked in an interview that since children play with Barbie and Ken for so much of their early lives, it is no wonder that they come to represent beauty for them.
The Real-Life Barbie
Valeria Lukyanova, known online as the "Human Barbie" of Odessa for her doll-like proportions, first gained international attention after posting a series of home videos on YouTube last fall. She claims to have been obsessed with Barbie since she was five years old. While comparisons of the Human Barbie’s current photos to older images show that she has changed drastically over the years – she has a completely different nose, for example – she insists that the only plastic surgery she has had is a breast augmentation that increased her cup size by two to make herself more feminine, and that everything else is due to makeup, targeted workouts at the gym, and her natural beauty. The only enhancement she admits to is blue contact lenses, worn over her natural green eyes to further her Barbie-like appearance. In past interviews, Valeria has revealed that she spends her mornings dedicated to facial work and massage, and that she spends the rest of the day online. Another favorite pastime is meditation – Lukyanova is deeply into the occult, and has gone so far as to declare herself an “energetic being” from another planet trapped in a human body. According to her, her true form is blue in color and stands five meters tall. While Jedlica and Lukyanova had never met prior to their appearance on Inside Edition, they were certainly aware of each other’s existence.
