That 'Woman With Three Breasts' Story Is Probably As Fake As Her Third Breast

The massage therapist from Tampa, Florida claimed to have paid $20,000 for the procedure in an attempt to secure herself a reality show on MTV. Using an obvious pseudonym, Jasmine Tridevil told an American radio station she had to contact more than 50 doctors before she found a surgeon willing to operate.

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She told Real Radio 104.1 that she went through the the surgery because she's hoping to land a reality show with MTV and to ward off men. "I got it because I wanted to make myself unattractive to men. Because I don't want to date anymore," she explained.

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At first glance, Tridevil’s story looks like a tale as old as time: Girl wants reality show. Girl has body dysmorphia and disposable income. Girl spends a small fortune on an insane, Total Recall-inspired surgery to get it. No wonder the media would eat it up. Except there’s just one problem with this narrative: Experts say it's just not true.

“[I] believe 100% that this is a hoax that everyone is falling for,” Dr. Matthew Schulman M.D., a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City who has performed thousands of breast augmentation and restruction surgeries, told the Daily Dot in an e-mail. “I would be happy to go on record claiming that this is a falsified story and essentially not possible.”

As Jasmine Tridevil's claims about a third breast circulated the social web, most information reported came directly from the subject herself without any external confirmation. Tridevil's Facebook page and YouTube account were the primary sources for verification, despite the fact that both hosted only self-taken videos and photos (and none actually shows the breast in question without a covering of clothing). In one clip posted by Tridevil, her "breasts" appeared to be of an entirely different skin tone than her facial skin and limbs.

Instead, multiple media outlets took her claims at face value and ran it as a straight news story with no corroboration (other than self-provided images that could easily have been faked): they contacted no one who knew or had seen Ms. Tridevil, they sought no third-party photographs of her, they didn't verify the story with the doctor who supposedly performed her unusual enhancement surgery, nor did they probe her obvious pseudonym to determine her real name and background.

A look at her website's WHOIS data reveals that Tridevil's real name is Alisha Hessler, a Tampa native who grabbed the media's attention in December 2013 after making a man who allegedly assaulted her hold a sign at an intersection with the words "I beat women, honk if I'm a scumbag."

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The website for her massage parlor, Alisha’s Golden Touch, now describes her as a “provider of internet hoaxes since 2014” and a “specialist in massage for three breasted women.” Tridevil also refused to display her third breast during an interview with 10 News Tampa, saying she was “saving that for the reality show.”

Furthermore, an Alisha Jasmine Hessler was taken into custody in Hillsborough County, Florida on 14 March 2013, and subsequently charged with fraudulent use of personal information. And the Tampa television station (WTSP) that recently interviewed "Jasmine Tridevil" reported that earlier in the month Alisha Hessler had filed a stolen baggage complaint at Tampa International Airport that listed a "3 breast prosthesis" among the items lost.

Basically, the process would involve placing a tissue expander under the skin between her real breasts to stretch the skin over the course of six months. The expander would the be replaced with a permanent implant. The whole procedure, says Schulman, would require multiple surgeries over the course of months, and is similar to reconstructing a cancer survivor’s breast after mastectomy. The problem is, says Dr. Schulman, that this surgery will “not give the results that are shown in [Tridevil’s] photos.”

“This technique would create a tight, round breast in the center of the chest,” he said. “Also, all three breasts will likely be connected because it would be impossible to create and maintain separation between all three round structures. The photos show a soft, pendulous breast that is clearly separate from the right and left breast. She essentially has a hanging breast, and it is just not reflective of what we would be able to expect from this reconstruction procedure.”

Dr. Anthony Youn, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Michigan, agrees that there are red flags in Tridevil’s story. While he concedes that creating a third breast is “possible” using a tissue expander, then tattooing a nipple and areola onto the breast afterward (as Tridevil has claimed a surgeon had done during interviews), he doubts any surgeon would consent to performing the “deforming procedure.”

“In addition to it just plain being bizarre, the potential ethical implications of performing this surgery could possibly get a real plastic surgeon in hot water with one of the two prominent plastic surgery societies, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS),” he told the Daily Dot. Such sanctions could lead to a permanent loss of the surgeon’s medical license.