Woman removes belly button, sends it to her boyfriend as a ‘gift’

Debbie White The Sun

After her body was mutilated, she bizarrely sent the belly button to her then boyfriend as a “present”.



Paulina Casillas Landeros, 23, from Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, fell out with her family after they who didn’t approve of her alternative lifestyle.

As well as several tattoos all over her body, Ms Landeros engaged in extreme body modifications such as getting a back corset — where piercings are created on either side of the spine, laced with ribbons and pulled tight — along with a split tongue.

Annoyed that her family didn’t approve of her lifestyle, Ms Landeros decided to remove her belly button out of spite, as it is “what makes us human”.

She then gave it as a strange gift to her then boyfriend in 2015.

Since having her belly button removed three years ago, Ms Landeros has made up with her family and ultimately regrets her decision, describing it as “reckless and impulsive”.

The HR intern and tourism student explained: “I have always had problems with my family, I was not very close to them at the time.

“Body modifications fascinated me, there is something very transcending about them.”

Describing herself as “very angry” at the time, she decided to “cut all unions from everything and everyone”.

“I wanted to dehumanise myself in a symbolic way, I wanted to do something controversial,” she said.

Ms Landeros had an operation to remove her belly button but claims the “professional gave me very bad advice on how to take care of the trauma so it got infected”.

“I was suffering, I spent days in bed as if I were quarantined. I couldn’t stretch, push, stand up or laugh,” she said.

“It gradually healed itself but not 100 per cent — it will never close entirely.”

Even though it was a painful procedure, Landeros knew exactly what she wanted to do with her removed belly button.

The young woman decided to turn it into a — some might say nauseating — token of love for her then boyfriend, Daniel Ramirez.

“I was very much in love with my then boyfriend; he supported me through many difficult times, and he is one of the most influential people in my life,” she said.

“It was something I did in the spur of the moment. We were young and stupid but that’s the way I felt.”

She said she put the belly button in a small bag and attached a note which read “I love you”.

“He has kept it and he will keep it forever because he knows the meaning behind it,” she said.

“We are good friends now but we will always love each other.”

Her relationship with her family has improved since then and Ms Landeros now realises how irreversible the decision to remove her belly button was.

She also said: “I do regret it when I put myself in my mum’s position, it must have been devastating for her, she was so sad.

“I can’t imagine how it must feel, your own child wanting to break all their connection to you.

“If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do it again, it was impulsive, reckless and I hurt a lot of people.”

Ms Landeros said the experience has taught her the importance of thinking things through before acting.

“And (the scar) is a nice reminder that characterises me,” she said.

This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.