- Baywatch star Nicole Eggert opened up about her decision to get breast implants at 18.
- “I regret it now, of course,” she said.
- The 52-year-old received a breast cancer diagnosis in December.
In early seasons of Baywatch, running down Emerald Bay Beach alongside Pamela Anderson was Nicole Eggert. The actress, now 52, left the show after two seasons, but those couple of years made a huge impact on her—physically and emotionally. For one, she got breast implants after realizing that she would spend most of filming in a bathing suit—a “stupid 18 year old decision” that she now regrets, she recently told People.
When Eggert auditioned for the show, she didn’t realize it was focused on lifeguarding—she thought it was a spin-off series about kids at a Malibu high school, she recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, sh*t,’” she said. “Oh my God, we’re going to be in a bathing suit all day every day?”
Eggert recalled the now iconic bright red suit as uncomfortable. “All the girls worked out and were super tiny and fit and I was like ‘Whoops.’ And the one-piece bathing suits were not flattering. I didn’t want to wear it at all,” she said. She particularly disliked how the top of her bathing suit fit her chest. “When you have to put on that one-piece and it’s like you’re so flat that it’s like pleating,” she continued. “You’re like, ‘What is this?’ Nothing you can do. You can’t stuff it with anything. You can’t do anything.”
And so, on a break from shooting, she opted to go under the knife. “I regret it now, of course,” she said. “I look at all these younger girls doing it and think, ‘God, leave your bodies alone!’”
Since then, the mom of two has undergone multiple subsequent breast augmentations, per People. In 2015, she appeared on Botched to have her cup size reduced.
Eggert and some of her Baywatch co-stars will elaborate further on personal tribulations that took place off-screen in the upcoming docuseries which she also helped produce, Baywatch: The American Dream. Directed by filmmaker Matthew Felker, the series was announced in 2019 and has taken years to come to fruition. A post made by the series’ official Instagram explained why: “Life,” the caption read. “Following life and its twists and turns takes time.”
One of those twists is Eggert’s recent breast cancer diagnosis of stage 2 cribriform carcinoma (a rare and slow-growing form) which she received in December 2023, per People. She sought a diagnosis after experiencing pain and discovering a lump in her left breast. “I can definitely feel it,” she said. “It’s there. It needs to be taken out. So it’s just a matter of do I have to do treatment before the surgery or can they perform the surgery and then I do the treatment after.”
She continued: “I have panics where I’m like, just get this out of me. You sit there and it’s in you and you’re like, every second that passes and it’s inside of me. It’s growing, and you’re just like, you just want it out.”
Eggert admitted that the “journey’s been rough,” adding: “This hasn’t been a breezy sale through life.” But she’s doing her best to remain positive. “I always read inspirational quotes and corny stuff,” she said. “But it gets me through.”
Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer-editor who covers health, nutrition, and lifestyle topics for various publications including Prevention, Everyday Health, SELF, People, and more. She’s always open to conversations about fueling up with flavorful dishes, busting beauty standards, and finding new, gentle ways to care for our bodies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University with specializations in women, gender, and sexuality studies and public health, and is a born-and-raised midwesterner living in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and two spoiled kitties.
