ADVERTISEMENT Many little girls play with Barbie dolls when they are young. Most of them don’t grow up to literally want to be Barbie. Valeria Lukyanova did. The story of Valeria Lukyanova is a strange one to say the least. She has spent her adult life looking as much as she can like Barbie and maintaining a kind of life that is very doll-like. The more we hear her speak the more strange everything becomes. Before surgeries Let us start at the beginning. Here we see Valeria before she did anything to herself, both in terms of cosmetic surgery as well as hair and makeup. She is very talented with her makeup technique, transforming herself to look like the living form of Mattel’s Barbie doll. Her story goes from cosmetic to just plain strange over the course of the years, we will let you go through and decide for yourself just how weird you’re willing to go.

Pre-Barbie mode Valeria was born in Moldovian SSR that used to be a part of the Soviet Union in 1985. At just 32 years old, Valeria has made quite a splash in the international media. Valeria moved from her birthplace to Odessa, Ukraine. During the 2014 war between Russia and the Ukraine, Valeria moved to Mexico to move her career forward as well as lead a conflict-free life.

Just a regular girl When trying to figure out what was the trigger that made Valeria want to become a human Barbie doll, it would be hard to put a finger on it. She was born and raised in what you would call an average Russian family. Her father, Valery Lukyanov, worked as a builder (not a body builder, just a regular builder), and her mother, Irina Pashkeeva, was an employee of the army.

The psychological twist In addition to being a builder, Valeria’s father, whose name is Valery (which means that Valeria was named after him), worked as a Disk Jockey (DJ). He worked only part time because he couldn’t really pay the bills and support his family from these gigs. Maybe that was a moment Valeria decided that she doesn’t want to work in a regular job and be an average human being like her parents.

Huge collection of dolls One of many psychological factors that made Valeria want to become a human Barbie doll, can be found in something that she talked about, when asked about her childhood and teen years. Valeria said that since she can remember, she always thought dolls were magical. She also had a huge collection of dolls, and she adored each and one of them.

A model In her late teens and early 20s, Valeria began modeling. She was tall (5 ft. 7) and slim, and had a beautiful and symmetric face that could be easily handled by make up artists. She knew that she wanted a glamorous life, and modeling was in a way something that could led her to achieve that goal.

Pageant Valeria started out as a model but she wanted to do something bigger and better. Something that will make people notice her. She made her first waves in 2007 when she won the Miss Diamond Crown of the World, an international beauty pageant. She got her photos taken around the same time, having her figure and face noticed for her unique beauty. Everything went according to her plan.

Interesting habits Prior to her time as the world’s first live-action Barbie, Valeria said that she practiced witchcraft and would dress in a gothic manner. “I remember, you were asking for my picture when I was 15. I was a goth for a long time.” Valeria is very open about her life when asked. She was a goth when she was a teen, as many of other American youth is/was. Valeria has since grown out of her dark days.

Bad girl vibe During her goth days of angst and witchcraft, as she says, she was very into what she believed with the spiritual world. It was after her phase as a goth that she began her transition to look like the living version of the Mattel doll that we all know and love. She went the exact opposite direction of where she was stylistically. She remains very spiritual, though.

Physical changes According to Valeria, she has only had breast implants put in. Nothing else. We personally find it very hard to believe, especially since her face looks like it has had some work done to it (work that is far more intense than makeup). Those who have heard of her have a hard time believing it either, but her own fans and followers believe everything she says and swear that has only had her breasts done.

Facial changes Valeria says that she spends an hour and a half doing her makeup and hair every single day. Again, she claims that she hasn’t done anything to her face surgically. However, if you look at her nose, eyes and lips before and after, you will see a difference that makeup alone could not be responsible for. We will go with Valeria on this only because there is no proof otherwise.

All dolled up “Sometimes I can have very bright makeup for weeks, and then decide against it completely for a while even though my eyes look twice as small this way.” Valeria uses special contact lenses and makeup to produce her desired look of big eyes and perfect complexion. She puts in a lot of time and work to make sure she is as perfect as the real Barbie doll.

Pure living Valeria doesn’t smoke or drink, her goal is to live off water as she considers herself a breatharian. “Breatharianism is the belief that it is possible for a person to live without consuming food. Breatharians claim that food, and in some cases water, are not necessary for survival, and that humans can be sustained solely by prana, the vital life force in Hinduism.” “‘In recent weeks I have not been hungry at all; I’m hoping it’s the final stage before I can subsist on air and light alone.”

Odessa Barbie Valeria has been nicknamed the Odessa Barbie. Her nickname makes sense she was raised in Odessa, Ukraine. Her features are in line with that of those born and raised in Eastern Europe. She has always had blonde hair (to some degree). She was born in Moldavian SSR, raised in the Ukraine, and currently living in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Quite a difference between her old stomping grounds and her new ones!

Refuting claims Going back to Valeria’s claim that she has had nothing done but her breasts, she said, “I’ve only done my boobs and have always been skinny. The only difference is that now I am more fit. That’s the only difference. In the future, if I require it for my body, then of course. I am not against surgery, but for now, there is nothing I need to do.”

How she gets her body So how does she make her body as lean and thin as it is? She works out daily and has a very strict diet. Like we said earlier, Valeria wants to be a breatharian, meaning that food for her is unnecessary, at least she wants it to be. Her larger than normal breasts give her waist a smaller look in proportion to her bust size. Her workouts are targeted at making her as thin and as strong as she could be.

Social media following Valeria has almost 1.2 million people following her on her Facebook page. She also has another 486,000 followers on her Instagram account. It’s through her social media accounts that she communicates with fans or people who are very interested in her life and why she does what she does. Her many photos show her unique features and the body she works hard to attain.

She sings too In an interesting twist, Valeria is actually a New Age opera singer! She has recorded two albums that she not only sang on but composed the music herself. The albums are called Sun in the Eyes, and 2013. As a singer she goes by her ‘astral’ name, Amatue. Valeria is also a published author. She wrote a book called Astral Travel Amatue that discusses her astral trips outside of her body.

Space Barbie In 2013, VICE did a documentary about Valeria. “I’d seen her like everyone else when she popped up on the internet with all those bewildering and bizarre images and videos,’ VICE director Will Fairman stated. “And thought there had to be something more behind it all, because I could see little flecks of esoteric stuff. I followed it up and discovered she was a new age opera composer and gave seminars on spirituality, so she obviously had a few more strings to her bow than just being a tumblr girl.”

Opinions Fairman continued, “She genuinely believes she’s from another planet. 100 per cent. She’s not making any money from her life – not even from the seminars she gives – which is originally why I thought she was doing this.” Well, since he met Valeria, we’re going to have to take his word for it and hope for the best. You can watch the documentary and decide for yourself.

Valeria about herself “I come from a place where only love and joy exist,” she says. “But I noticed the media is only interested in negativity: show someone in a bad light, show someone’s mistakes. There are hate blogs and communities about me who post bad pictures about me and try and worsen my mood. Perhaps at some point I was an energy vampire, because I constantly received their negative reactions and enjoyed it. Specifically for them I created posts that would make them angry. But people who think badly of me just aren’t happy in their own lives. When they are happy they will forget about me.”

Valeria and husband Dmitry Valeria is married to Dmitry, a Ukrainian businessman. On her husband, Valeria said, “Dmitry is always on my side. He loves and supports me. He likes me with make-up and without,” Valeria told The Sun. “He became a strict vegetarian even earlier than I did. He is fond of mountains – he conquered Mount Elbrus. We were on Everest, went to Nepal and the Himalayan mountain range.”

Unconventional relationship Valeria and Dmitry have a very unconventional relationship, as unconventional as Valeria herself is. On her marriage and future choices in terms of children, she said, “I don’t feel the desire and the capacity to be a mother.” She continues by saying, “I’m from another universe. There, everyone is asexual – in our dimension there’s no such thing as children.” We are not going to argue otherwise, we will let you make your own decisions here.

Valeria and mom Irina Valeria’s mother, Irina, looks very much like her beautiful daughter. Valeria does her mother’s makeup to make her look like her in terms of her perfect skin and big eyes. Valeria said that it was her mother who inspired her to lead an ‘astral’ life. Her mother supports Valeria’s path in life and her notions of being from another planet. Acceptance is very much key in this family we see. Through thick and thin!

Mother’s genes Going back to her figure, Valeria says she gets her figure from her mother as well. “My mother’s waist is as narrow as mine – I inherited that from her.” We don’t doubt it at all, we just doubt the being from another planet, eating nothing and living on water, and that she is not meant to be intimate with anyone, including her husband as that is counterproductive to being.

Barbie and Ken Barbie met Ken in the United States when the world wanted the two to meet. She hated Ken. Ken is actually Justin Jedlica who has been featured on the E! Channel show Botched where he was refused surgery by the doctors since he has already undergone so much. Of the meeting, Valeria said that “He overdid his lips.” Ouch. They both agree that, “Children play with Barbie and Ken all the time so it’s fed to us from a very young age that that is the epitome of what is beautiful or what is handsome.”

Dolls “Many people think you need only good looks to be successful but that’s not true – only spiritual work can bring tangible results.” Those words from Valeria are her guidelines to life. She states that she is a spiritual being who is not of this planet and is on another level. We would love to believe that if the fact that she had an obsession with dolls when she was a child and had a large collection of them surrounding her at all times.

Alien connection “My out-of-body experiences began when I was a little girl: I could travel outside of my body to other planets and universes,” Valeria said in an interview, continuing by said that she speaks with aliens “all the time.” We thought it would be good to share with you the fact that she not only comes from another planet but communicates with extra terrestrials and is telling us all about it.

Net worth Usually, when someone is very followed on social media, they are asked to use products that are sent to them to endorse and therefore make a nice living off of it. Valeria has said that she doesn’t do that and that she doesn’t make money off of her social media accounts. Her net worth is unknown as she dabbles in the music industry and has just been a sensation due to her looks.

Skin regimen Since Valeria claims that her face has not been touched and that her modifications are by way of makeup alone, there are many who wonder what Valeria’s skin regimen is. She does the occasional face mask to rejuvenate he skin after wearing mounds of makeup to cover it up. Other than that, Valeria states that her skin is very good on its own due to her pure diet.

Normal upbringing leads to extraordinary desires Her parents were normal individuals. Her father was in construction and her mother was in the military sector where she could not reveal much to her family. Valeria grew up in very ‘normal’ surroundings and there are those who think it is because everything was so boring and normal then that she had the need to make her future and adult life as out there as she possibly could.

Dislike for unattractive people Valeria, who prides herself on outer beauty and perfection, has gone on record as said that those who are unattractive on the outside are “ugly on the inside.” What she is referring to is the fact that most of those who slam her for her modifications and her pursuit of perfection, are usually unattractive themselves. Whether that be the case or not, that is a pretty sensational claim.

Dislike for unattractive people 2 Valeria did a full interview about what she thinks of ugly people, stating, “Let’s take Sarah Jessica Parker. To be fair, she has a horse face but she looks fine. Some girls simply think that nothing can help them when all they do is lie on a couch eating pastry.” Her words are definitely harsh but we admit she says what’s on her mind.

Bodybuilder Valeria initially went for the rail thin body type. These days she is much more into the stronger look. She goes to the gym on a daily basis and works on every muscle group she can. She wants to look more like a soldier than a Barbie figure. She posted on her social media that, “I no longer like my body. It needs some muscle.” Barbie has changed a lot since the first time she made the shelves.

Working on her physical features Valeria continued by saying, “It is a pity that most people choose the path of degradation,” she stated in Russian. “I am certainly still far from ideal, very far. But I strive for athleticism…. so funny that girls and boys from sporting groups write such nasty things about my body… so much negativity,” she added. Valeria has changed a lot since first going on this mission for perfection.

Attacked In 2014, Valeria said that she was attacked. “I came back home from a shop with bags and entered the door code when two men rushed from the dark and attacked me,” she explained to the Mail. “It happened in a flash, they hit me on the head, several times on my jaw, then one of them began strangling me.” She denied rumors of recovering from plastic surgery. We are very suspicious.

Two Instagrams; Russian and English Due to her multitude of fans all around the world, Valeria Lukyanova actually has two instagrams – one in English and another one in Ukrainian. As she is Ukrainian by birth (and Ukrainian is super close to Russian anyway), she has a lot of fans who can only read in write in Cyrillic, the alphabet used in Eastern Europe. For the rest of her fans around the world, she has her English page.

Interracial marriages cause plastic surgery During an interview with GQ magazine, Valeria explains her theory as to why there is so much plastic surgery nowadays. She argues that in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the former Soviet Union, people did not intermarry with other races and cultures. So, as she says, a girl can come from Russian and Armenian parents and have beautiful Russian features but have a giant Armenian nose. Therefore, the girl will want to get a nose job.

Barbie friends Valeria is far from the only person who has tried to make herself look like a plastic doll. In fact, she is not even the first one. That title goes to a British woman named Sarah Burge. Burge is quite well known in the British tabloids for being as being a huge proponent of plastic surgery, undergoing over 100 herself. She also encourages her daughters to get plastic surgery, giving them coupons to get implants and botox.

Is this Barbie’s Jazzie? Valeria is not even the only person in her friend group who wants to look like a little girl’s doll. Almost attached to Valeria’s hip is Olga “Dominika” Oleynik. She has not had nearly as many alleged surgeries as Valeria, but it is clear that she is in the same mindset in regards to her appearance. While she did get implants, she really just looks like any southern California girl with a lot of makeup.

A growing trend It appears that the urge to look like a real life barbie doll is not unique at all, and that there are women from all over the world who are working to emulate Barbie’s small waist, large chest, and huge eyes. But there is also another trend taking off – men who are trying their hardest to look like Ken dolls. These men have gone through dozens of plastic surgeries to get the same look as a Ken doll. What if two of these people joined up?

Actually Barbie Posted as a comment to one of Valeria’s Instagram pictures, user str4wb_cupk4te pretty much hit the nail on the head when describing this life sized Barbie. She said “It’s like when you see a wolf-man or a person with five heads.. You don’t want to look but you can’t help yourself because it’s so out-of-the-ordinary.” Thank you str4wb_cupk4te, we could not have said it any better ourselves.

Ditching breatharianism? While Valeria perhaps was trying to practice breatharianism in the past, it appears that those days are now over. In fact, here she is drinking what appears to be a giant shake. Breatharianism has been labeled a pseudoscience by doctors and can actually get people killed as they starve themselves to death or simply die of dehydration. Maybe Valeria realized this and made the appropriate lifestyle changes.

Getting ripped In fact, it looks like Valeria is no longer going for the complete Barbie look, and is trying to build muscle (which means that she must be eating). While her giant chest and skinny waist are still there, at least now she looks more human and healthy. In fact, she has some serious muscles going on, something which she is not shy about showing off on her Instagram account.

More beautiful without makeup There are several time when Valeria posts pictures of herself without makeup, and simply put, it makes all of her fans go wild. In fact, Valeria got over 9,000 likes on this picture of her looking more or less human alone. While she does look like she has on a lot of makeup, she does also look more natural and has less of the uncanny valley effect.

Early photo We went back to this early photo of Valeria to see what she looked like in the very beginning. This is one of her first ever Instagram posts taken way back in 2012. It looks like she has not completely gone through her complete body and makeup transformation at this point, and she still looks like a really pretty human. But even now, people are saying that she looks beautiful without as much makeup on.