Everyone wants the booty, but nobody wants to pay the bill. Natasha Stewart aka “Pebbelz Da Model” has been convicted of manslaughter in the death of 37-year-old Atlanta resident Karima Gordon. Pebbelz, a video vixen/model who has appeared in the videos of rappers such as Cam’Ron and the Uncut DVD series, referred Gordon to Tracey Lynn Garner, an interior/floral designer who subsequently gave her illegal butt injections in March 2012. The silicone injections traveled to Gordon’s lungs eventually leading to her death.
Although Stewart wasn’t the one performing the “procedure”, a judge still felt she contributed to Gordon’s death by accepting a $200 finder’s fee and falsely presenting the florist as a nurse. Stewart has also been linked to a number of other botched booty jobs including a Jackson, Mississippi woman who died after receiving concrete booty injections (You read that right, the same substance used to pave the sidewalk). Garner is said to have used veterinary syringes to inject the silicone, before sealing the injection sites with cotton balls and glue. After Gordon expressed she felt sick, Garner advised the woman to seek emergency treatment, but not to mention the booty shots.
In court, Stewart pleaded her case saying she just wanted to help an insecure woman and didn’t even want payment, but Gordon insisted on compensating her. Originally charged with “depraved-heart” murder which is described as a “callous disregard for human life”, a jury eventually found Stewart guilty of culpable negligence manslaughter. She faces up to 20 years in prison and has yet to be sentenced.
It’s unfortunate that women are losing their lives all in an effort to look like caricatures of naturally curvy women, and those willing to perform these deadly procedures should be held liable. But Pebbelz and Tracey Garner wouldn’t be able to even run these types of businesses if women weren’t willing to pay. With any surgical procedure there’s risks, and many women are willing to take those risks if it means at the end of the day they’ll be able to “twerk something”. But we have to remember there are licensed medical professionals who can perform these procedures at least somewhat safely. Would you have your kidney replaced in the back of your barber’s mini-van? How about having your makeup artist perform Lasik in the waxing room? So why do women keep allowing unlicensed, uncertified exotic dancers/surgeons to inject their behinds with everything from toothpaste to tub caulk? Probably because it’s cheaper, and honestly: You get what you pay for.
With everyone from Kim Kardashian to Blac Chyna rocking a suspicious wide load, it looks like big booties are the 2000’s version of breast implants. And if you want a little extra added to back that thang up, that’s your business. But if you’re going to do so do it safely and seek an actual medical professional, not someone who is scrubbing up in their basement bathroom.
