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Brooklyn Koury She's a young skater and model from the West Coast of the United States. She was forging her future at casting calls in Los Angeles, perhaps at some point dreaming of making it to Hollywood. One summer, she received an invitation to spend a few days at her cousin's house in Arizona. She went there to visit her relative; they had grown up together and had a very good relationship.
As he crossed the United States by bus, he didn't know he was heading for a radical change in his life. Everything would unfold by a dog attack. Brooklyn would never be the same.
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The day of the attack
November 3, 2020The cousins were already gathered on the porch of their Arizona home. They were touching up their nails while chatting about love or the near future. Maybe going to a local party. Koury took a selfie for her Instagram and noticed a small pimple near her mouth. She touched up the image before uploading it. A small gesture that spoke volumes about the perfection with which she treated her modeling image.
The girls were in the kitchen and Brooklinn approached her cousin's dog, an 8-year-old pitbull named Diesel. I already knew the animal from previous visits and had a special affection for it.
“I was petting him and saying, ‘You’re a good boy.’ He literally jumped from sitting to being on my face,” Brooklinn recalls in an interview with People magazine.
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“I was standing, and he was sitting, and he just jumped up. And he was literally hanging off my lip. And my first instinct was like, 'Oh my God, get on the floor.' Finally, I felt a release. And then something flew up and hit the wall,” The girl explains about the day that changed her life.
After the attack, her entire mouth was pure blood. “I looked down, and my whole shirt was just blood, blood everywhere,” Brooklinn recounts, almost unfazed, the memory still fresh in her mind.
The girl recalled that the animal “would shake its head like a toy” and eventually took off her entire upper lip and parts of her nose.
Barely past the first shock of the attack, Brooklinn saw a pink lump on the ground and realized it was her lip because of the pimple she'd just cut out of her selfie. She wrapped it in a napkin and went with her cousin to the hospital. Meanwhile, Diesel huddled in a corner of the house, not understanding much.
Despite their quick response, surgeons were unfortunately unable to save Khoury's upper lip.
A month before the November 2020 dog attack, Khoury was featured in a Vogue article about female skaters, a big moment for an influencer who at the time was only 13,000 followers.
Life as an influencer
Her modeling career came to a halt after her physical changes, but Khoury remained very active on Instagram. He would post skate tricks in the air, with a bandage on his face or a hand covering his injured nose and mouth area.
Then, the model began to live her new life. She struggled to accept her new facial features, despite the shocked looks from people who passed her on the street. "The first time I saw myself after surgery was terrifying," she recalls. "But I said, 'Okay, it's time to love this new version of myself for now.' “I want people to know that they are not alone if they are going through something like this.”
On November 3, 2020, Khoury was excitedly preparing to film his first major television commercial. He was going to surf and skateboard in front of the camera. But while visiting family in Arizona, his relative's dog jumped on his face.
She was left alone in the hospital for three days due to COVID-19 restrictions. Her then-agent asked her if she would “ride through” the accident and film the commercial. She said no.
Brooklinn's fight has been going on for more than two years, during which she has undergone several surgeries to regain some of her facial expressions. Twelve months after being bitten by Diesel, her cousin's pit bull, the young woman reflected on social media.
“Exactly one year ago, my life changed completely. This attack taught me to truly love myself inside and out, regardless of what people have to say. It taught me that society sets high standards for beauty, but the reality is that we are all beautiful in our own way. I learned to be patient with how people react to my story. It taught me to love, even when I didn't feel it from others. “He showed me how precious life is,” the girl wrote.
After the incident, Brooklinn often thought she'd never smile again. In fact, she'd forgotten what her smiling face looked like. Every so often, she'd revisit photos from before the attack to recognize herself as that image-conscious girl who dreamed of making it to Hollywood.
“It's crazy how your life can change so dramatically in a split second.” "I'm trying to stay as positive as possible about this whole situation, but I'll be honest, I'm scared about my future, or if I'll ever be able to eat normally again," she wrote in another of her viral Instagram posts.
Brooklinn uses her Instagram account to showcase herself and inspire others facing similar challenges. “It’s crazy how many people have reached out to share their stories and experiences. Dog attacks happen way more than I imagined. I’m not here sharing my story to put a bad light on any dog or breed of dog. I’m simply here to share what happened to me and make anyone going through something similar feel less alone,” she admitted.
Never again a pitbull
After the attack, her cousin's pit bull was euthanized. “I know a lot of people who have this breed of dog. They absolutely love their dogs and swear they would never hurt anyone. I've seen friendly pit bulls, but I also met my cousin's pet, who was friendly but ended up attacking me,” the model emphasized. “So, for me, owning a pit bull would probably be like owning a loaded gun; you don't really know what's going to happen. That's why I would never own one.”
Thus, the girl became famous on Instagram. On that social network it is shown without filters, He writes inspirational messages and tells how he tries to rebuild his face day after day with multiple operations.
In these almost three years he reached 285 thousand followers and the attack of Diesel that disfigured her face and turned her into a celebrity, an influencer. Perhaps that way, the path to Hollywood will be shorter. She started earning around $1,000 per sponsored post and landed a slew of major brand deals with companies like DC Shoes.
Brooklinn even opened its own YouTube channel, where he documented his road to recovery, and his first video garnered nearly 250,000 views and has over 100,000 subscribers.
In October of last year, Brooklyn revealed she was dating former Dance Moms star Chloe Lukasiak.. She did it like everything in her life through Instagram. The girl posted a picture of the two of them holding hands.
After several attempts, Brooklinn underwent reconstructive surgery. During the procedure, doctors will use an artery in her arm and skin from her body to create lip-like tissue. It cost about $400,000 and will require at least five follow-up surgeries.
“Everything went well. The nerve, the tissue, the skin—everything is fine, alive, and healing, which is really good and rare,” the girl said after the first procedure.
The 22-year-old admitted that many people told her not to post videos or photos of her face because of "the way it looks." But she decided she wanted to be open about every step of the process so she could help others who might be going through something similar. So, with her new face now out in the public eye, Brooklinn is growing on social media, and her dream of celebrity is getting closer. Something unthinkable happened on November 3, 2020, when the pit bull attacked her at her cousin's house in Arizona.
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