150
K
atie Piper is well-
known in the U.K.
as an author, tele-
vision presenter,
and podcaster.
But today, wear
ing an unbuttoned
white Saint
Laurent shirt and high-waisted black
briefs with a pair of Manolos in a
London photo studio, the 36 -year-old
from rural Hampshire is practically
incognito. Her long, tousled hair blows
around her dark smoky eyes and wide
cheekbones. Between shots she stops
and gazes at the monitor. “I’ve never
seen myself like this,” she says, her
voice choking a bit with emotion.
It’s the kind of reaction one might
expect from almost anyone confronted
with an image of herself in a fashion
magazine. At the same time it’s not
hard to see why the experience would
resonate with Piper so profoundly.
The daughter of a barber and a
teacher, Piper grew up in southern
England. After splitting with a boy-
friend with whom she moved to
London in her early 20 s, she took a
bedroom in a house share where her
roommates were all aspiring actresses,
dancers, singers, and models. She too
started going on auditions, and found
her métier in television presenting. “I
was from a small village, and it was all
very exciting to be able to say, ‘I live
in London and I’m on telly,’” Piper
recalls. “It felt like I was along that
path to where I wanted to be.”
Soon, though, she endured an inci-
dent that would have a seismic impact
on her life. In March 2008 , Piper, then
24 , was violently attacked by a 19 -year-
old assailant, who threw sulphuric
acid in her face in the street outside
her north London flat. The perpetra-
tor, it turned out, had been recruited
by a man with whom Piper had had
a two-week relationship that had
ended with him sexually and physically
assaulting her. Piper’s injuries from
the acid attack included third-degree
burns on her face, neck, chest, and
hands, and the loss of sight in one eye.(Both men were eventu-
ally convicted for their
roles in the attack and
given life sentences, but
in 2018 the one who
threw the acid was re-
leased after serving only
nine years in prison.)
Piper was hospitalized
for three months after-
ward and spent 12 days
in a medically induced
coma. Surgeons removed
the dead and damaged
skin from her face and
replaced it with a skin
substitute, MatriDerm,
to build the foundations
for a graft. When it was
time for her to be handed
a mirror to confront her
own image, she imme-
diately handed it back,
saying it must be dam-
aged. To date, she has
undergone more than
300 operations.
After Katie: My Beau-
tiful Face, a harrowing
Channel 4 documen-
tary about Piper’s
recovery aired in
2009 , she started
the Katie Piper
Foundation to
benefit others
recovering from
burn injuries. In
2019 , the foundation
opened the U.K.’s first
live-in burn and scar reha-
bilitation center.
Since then, Piper has written books,
including the self-help tomes Confi-
dence: T he Secret and Things Get Better;
made frequent TV appearances; and
launched a podcast, Extraordinary
People, which features interviews with
women Piper herself finds inspiring,
like Great British Bake Off winner
Nadiya Hussain and Olympian Dame
Jessica Ennis-Hill. And more recently
she has become a face of Pantene’s
“The Power of Hair” U.K. campaign.It’s both refreshing and
heartening that Piper’s
enthusiasm for beauty
appears undimin-
ished. “I’ve always
loved makeup,” she
says. “I did a beauty
course after leav-
ing school, and I still
enjoy face masks, exfo-
liations, and peels. I’ve had
to learn to use primers better
because of the scarring, and it’s difficult
to make up one eye because of being
blind in the other.”
For her on-camera and personal
appearances, Piper works with the
same trusted glam squad, but her once
golden hair is now a darker shade of
blonde. “After the attack, the only way I
could express myself was by constantly
changing my hair, because I couldn’t
move my face. It was a way to rein-
vent myself and leave the past behind,
to stop people referring to the past“If I must accept
that I have permanently
changed, then it’s
the industry
I must now change.”
Blouse and
culottes, Saint
Laurent
by Anthony
Vaccarello.
Sandals, Manolo
Blahnik.