Tulisa Contostavlos discovers cause of 12-year health battle that was 'horrific'

Tulisa Contostavlos discovers cause of 12-year health battle that was 'horrific'
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Tulisa Contostavlos has discovered the root cause of a 12-year health battle that left her in "horrific pain and fearing for her face". The former ITV The X Factor star and N Dubz singer, aged 36, says she battled agonising swelling in her face and felt like her "cheek was on fire".

Tulisa finally got to the root cause of her health battle last year, after a scan "three chronically infected cysts" in her left cheek. "For years they were testing me for sarcoidosis, immune disorders, and now it explains all the symptoms that I was getting," she said.

She said: "They [the cysts] could have been growing over the years and actually triggering Bell's Palsy." Tulisa said the swelling was "at its worst" when the singer reunited with N-Dubz for a sell-out tour in 2022. The singer was told to get the filler in her face removed. She had already had it removed in the left side of her face to balance out the swelling.

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"To be fair, I haven't had any surgery up until - confession - recently," Tulisa said. "All the time before there was no surgery, only fillers and other issues that I had." She said: "I was sat at home and I had this huge burst of inflammation on my cheek, as if I had an abscess in there."

"My face remained like that for seven months. I didn't go out, I just hid in the house," she said. Tulisa said: "For me it was the trauma of the inflammation but no one knows what caused this cheek to blow up." She recalled: "I would have tingling sensations like little ants crawling in my face, my cheek was numb.

"I started seeing doctors all around the UK [telling them] 'something's wrong with me, what's wrong with my face'. It was scary."