When Anthony Loffredo walks down the sidewalk, people gasp, cross the road, or stop and stare. Uber drivers turn him away. Restaurants refuse to serve him.
He couldn’t get a job interview, let alone a job, and it took a year for the Mexican government to issue him an ID card.
That’s because the 35-year-old has traded in his former life as a “really sexy guy” who went from nightclub to nightclub to pursue his extreme goal: becoming a “black alien.”
His nose has been amputated, his ears cut off, his eyeballs and skin tattooed black, two of his fingers removed, demonic symbols burned into his flesh, and horns implanted under his skin.
Anthony Loffredo, from France, has dedicated his life to transforming his handsome appearance into that of a black alien (pictured right in August 2023)
Mr. Loffredo is pictured above before his transformation (left) and after numerous surgeries. He is part of the extreme body modifications community
Mr Loffredo, who is originally from France, says he has now undergone more operations than he can remember.
But the online sensation says he is only 65 percent of the way there. He also plans to saw off one of his legs and replace it with a biomechanical one.
He began his journey at the age of 26, after realizing that he was unhappy with his appearance and wanted to undergo surgeries to look like himself again.
“Yes, (I was) happy, but not in the right body,” he revealed to Britain’s Channel 4 in an episode that aired last year. “It (was) not my body, my real body.”
Speak about Club 113 podcasthe added — in Spanish: “I started this project because it’s something that really catches my attention.
‘I’m fascinated, it fascinates me – everything, the human body.
‘(My look is inspired by) a little bit of everything, because no one knows what’s out there.’
He began his transformation without telling his parents. The couple was initially shocked by the change, but later they supported him.
He added: ‘I went to their house on Christmas Day and for the first 15 minutes they looked at me strangely, but then everything was fine.
‘They were probably a little sad, but ever since I was little, my mother always let me do whatever I wanted.’
However, the shocked reactions of many did not stop him from finding love.
Last December, it was revealed that he was in a relationship with model and tattoo and body modification enthusiast Melina Shakur.
Mr. Loffredo has undergone numerous procedures, including cutting off his nose, ears and two of his fingers (pictured above)
He shared this above image of himself, also showing off the implants in his arms. He was planning to have one of his legs amputated, but that has now been postponed
He is pictured above before the procedures. He worked as a nightclub security guard before deciding at the age of 26 that he wanted to undergo the surgeries
Mr. Loffredo is pictured above before and after his transformation
The two revealed their relationship in a video posted online, which Loffredo released with the caption that she was his “girlfriend.”
They have since posted explicit videos of themselves kissing and showing off their forked tongues.
Mr. Loffredo belongs to the group of people who perform extreme body modifications, that is, people who undergo voluntary and unconventional changes that are hardly socially accepted.
Often, these require specialized surgery and are sometimes irreversible. Mr. Loffredo has to travel abroad for them because they are illegal in his country.
They include full anesthesia in shady, underground clinics and tattoo parlors.
Other notable members of the community include Texas dragon woman Tiamat Legion Medusa, who made international headlines in 2019 after altering her body to become a genderless reptile.
In another case, Tom Leppard from Scotland had spots tattooed over 99.2 percent of his body to resemble a leopard. He died in 2016 at the age of 80.
But the black alien may now have doubts about his transformation.
The final part of the alien modifications, the leg amputation, appears to have been postponed since he entered into the relationship.
In January he announced that he did not want any further procedures. He said that he did not regret the changes, but that he now wanted to do something new.
“Right now I’m going to focus on something essential,” he said in Spanish, “not on how to live.”
He shared this photo online in January with the caption: ‘Same, all black’
Mr Loffredo said he was no longer receiving any procedures because the project had lost all meaning and he now wanted to do something else
Mr. Loffreddo is pictured above during the procedure to have his fingers removed. It was not performed by doctors in a medical facility.
In February, he posted a message on Instagram with the caption: “Sometimes dreams can’t come true so we start photo editing.”
And in another post from April, he said, “I transformed myself into a rare and ugly creature, but I enjoyed it.”
The couple last posted a video together in May this year, which showed them discussing getting some of his tattoos removed.
The first procedure he underwent was a forked tongue, followed by dozens of other operations.
These surgeries also included implants in his arms and head, painting his teeth blue and making incisions in his face.
He regularly shares his transformation online; he has 1.3 million followers on his Instagram account alone.
His decision to stop the procedures coincided with his beginning of a relationship with tattoo enthusiast Melina Shakur
Theories online suggest that Melina, pictured above with him, may have played a role in stopping the black alien project
Many of his videos receive negative comments, such as saying he has a “mental illness,” a “childhood trauma,” or that “man, nobody is a fan.”
But despite everything, he says his parents have always remained loyal to him, even though they were a little shocked by his first transformation.
His mother speaks to him almost every day, he told Channel 4 last year, but his father has since died of cancer.