Arsenal star’s ex-wife reveals nose transformation after flesh-eating disease left her disfigured after botched surgery

The ex-wife of former Arsenal star Andrey Arshavin has revealed how her nose has been transformed after being left disfigured by a flesh-eating disease following a botched operation.

Former model Alisa Kazmina, 41, showed off what her nose looked like after a series of nine operations to repair the hole in the middle of her face left by the disease.

Kazmina, who married Russian winger Arshavin in 2016, watched in horror as her nose rotted away as her immune system turned on her body and began eating her face.

Shocking time-lapse footage released by her medical team shows her miraculous recovery from a hole in the middle of her face, surrounded by a flap of flesh, which returned to normal over the course of several months.

Kazmina’s ordeal began in 2020 when her nose became inflamed following a series of cosmetic surgery procedures.

Within a year, she stopped posting on social media and began hiding as her nose was eaten away by the flesh-eating bacteria and turned into a rapidly growing hole.

The mother of three, whose youngest daughter Yesenya was fathered by her footballer ex, says her ordeal began when she noticed her nose was drooping, but that she was still so depressed after her divorce from Arshavin in 2019 that she ignored it.

Instead of going to the hospital, she called cosmetic specialists who treated it as a simple infection. But instead of healing, the hole only got bigger and deeper.

But in May 2020, non-cosmetic doctors diagnosed her with “autoimmune necrosis,” which caused her body’s natural defense mechanisms to turn against themselves.

Some doctors at the time speculated in Russian media that Kazmina’s illness could be granulomatosis with polyangiitis, previously known as Wegener’s granulomatosis, a rare multisystem autoimmune disease.

It damages the walls of blood vessels, leading to destruction of surrounding tissue and can be fatal.

Others said Kazmina may also have been suffering from a “rare fungus.”

In 2021, journalist Kazmina said her “beautiful face had been disfigured by the disease.”

Shockingly, the necrosis that had eaten away her nose was now just millimeters from her brain.

Kazmina explained earlier: ‘I had an operation to clean up the necrosis. It was an emergency, time was running out. The destruction was up to the sphenoid sinuses, almost to the brain.’

Although the surgery saved her life, she was ultimately left with little more than a flap over her nose and a single hole to breathe through.

She said that after the five-hour surgery, the nose was completely cleared. There was no bone, cartilage or mucus left.

Subsequently, reconstructive surgery expert Dr. Denis Agapov performed a series of surgeries to repair her nose.

While removing tissue from her forehead and cartilage from her ears and ribs, the medical team rebuilt her face piece by piece.

Dr. Agapov said in a Telegram post: “The most challenging part of my work was restoring the soft tissue covering, which was almost completely missing.

‘Skin flaps were taken from the nasolabial folds, together with ear cartilage. This was transplanted with the skin.

‘Several surgeries were performed: some successful and some not. At one stage we lost almost everything due to the inflammatory process.’

Now, the surgeon says, Kazmina will have to undergo three more surgeries to reshape her new nose.

Dr. Agapov explains: ‘At the moment we are refining the “slightly rough” structure into a delicate and beautiful feminine nose.’

Responding to the post, Kazmina thanked the doctor, saying he had “given her the chance to live again.”

Kazmina was married to Arshavin from 2016 to 2019, after which the former Arsenal player had to pay £3,350 a month in maintenance for their daughter Yesenya.

Arshavin scored 31 goals in 144 games for Arsenal between 2009 and 2013, before returning to his boyhood club Zenit St Petersburg.

He has been a board member of Zenit since 2023. Before that, he held an administrative position at Zenit, after which he was Deputy Director General of Sports Development.

When Arshavin played for Arsenal, he lived in London. He was in a relationship with the famous Russian TV presenter Yulia Baranovskaya, with whom he has three children.