Supermodel Linda Evangelista said she has been left “brutally disfigured” and “unrecognisable” after a cosmetic body-sculpting procedure gone wrong.

“Today I took a big step towards righting a wrong that I have suffered and have kept to myself for over five years,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised," she said.

"It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries. I have been left, as the media has described, unrecognisable," she added.

The supermodel said that she was not made aware of the risk before the procedures and referred to filing a lawsuit.

CoolSculpting is the brand name for a fat-freezing method that aims to get rid of stubborn fat in certain parts of the body. The method is called cryolipolysis.

It received the US Food and Drug Administration approval in 2010.

CoolSculpting uses a procedure known as cryolipolysis. It isn't surgery and doesn't need needles.

It works by placing a roll of fat into two panels that cool the fat to a freezing temperature. The process destroys about 20-25 percent of the fat cells in the area that's targeted.

The final results may take a few months to show, but some changes can be seen within a few weeks. The immune system clears out the dead fat cells slowly over this time.

The supermodel experienced a rare cosmetic side effect called Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH). It is a rare adverse effect in which patients develop painless, firm, and well-demarcated tissue masses in the treatment areas approximately 3-6 months following cryolipolysis.

The incidence of PAH has been estimated at 0.0051 percent or 1 in 20,000 treated patients.