Aspiring Pop Star, 14, Needs Plastic Surgery To ‘Look Younger’ [Video]

One look at Shimali De Silva (above) and you might think “she seems like a perfectly earnest, pretty young girl” and you’d be right. So why was she told she needs plastic surgery to make herself look younger in order to cut it in the Hong Kong music scene? *emphatic “we don’t know” gesture*

De Silva, of Australia, recently made it to the final round of K-Pop Star Hunt, a Korean international talent contest, at age 14. She posted her audition to YouTube (below) and was invited to Seoul to film. Imagine her surprise when she and other contestants were given a consultation with a plastic surgeon by the competition’s producers.

“The doctor brought out this terrible mug shot and said to me, ‘You’re 14, but you look 30.’ He pointed out the curvature of my forehead, the ratio of my nose to my chin, all this stuff that I hadn’t even thought about,” she recalled for the South China Morning Post.

She was understandably upset, and called her mother from the clinic bathroom in tears. Her mom flew to Seoul to get her, and her confidence was… well… where any 14-year-old’s confidence would be in that situation.

Since then, De Silva has moved on from the experience, and is working her way up through local theater.

“She has put it behind her now, and it was a learning experience,” said her mother, Ruanthi De Silva. “The organizers didn’t mean to harm the contestants; they thought they were doing them a favor.”

You can check out Shimali De Silva’s audition video below, and let us know what you think: