Brooklinn Khoury Shares Photo of Face Immediately After Being … – PEOPLE

Vanessa Etienne is an Emerging Content Writer-Reporter for PEOPLE. Prior to joining in April 2021, she served as a reporter for Men's Health Magazine and BET Digital after freelancing for publications such as The New York Times and Everyday Health. Originally from northern Virginia, Vanessa is a proud Haitian American with a love for R&B music and mental health topics. She graduated from North Carolina State University with a bachelor's in Communication and Public Relations before earning her master's degree in Journalism from the City University of New York.
Brooklinn Khoury is giving her fans a look at the severity of her injuries immediately after she was attacked by a pit bull in 2020.
On Wednesday, the pro skateboarder and model, 23, posted a TikTok video responding to a follower who asked if she had any photos from the day she was mauled by the dog, which resulted in her losing her upper lip and part of her nose.
"I knew it was bad but I didn't know how bad it was," Khoury said in the clip. "I looked around, there were no mirrors. My phone was in my back pocket so I took it out so I could see the reflection of my face. But what I didn't know is that my phone took a picture."
Khoury then shared two photos of her injury — one with her face bandaged and another censored image of her face noticeably covered in blood.
"It's crazy because this photo has helped my doctor tremendously because he was able to see the original bite marks from the attack and kind of map out what happened," she added.
She has since had a number of reconstructive surgeries to repair her top lip and nose.
Khoury — who is currently dating Dance Moms alum Chloé Lukasiak — previously opened up to PEOPLE about the tragic accident, which occurred in November 2020 when she was visiting her cousin’s house in Gilbert, Arizona.
The model was standing in the kitchen when she went to pet her cousin's dog, an 8-year-old blue nose pitbull named Diesel, who she had met many times before.
"I was like, 'You're such a good boy.' He literally sprung from a sitting position like onto my face," she recalled to PEOPLE in 2021. "I was standing, and he was sitting — he literally just sprung up. And he was literally, hanging — literally like arms, legs hanging off of my lip. And my first instinct was like, 'Oh my God, get on the ground with him, hold his head, go wherever he goes.' "
Whenever he pulled, she moved with him. "Finally, I felt a release. And then, something flew and hit the wall," she remembered.
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​​She stood up, took a deep breath before realizing she tasted blood: "I looked down and my whole shirt was just blood — like blood, blood, blood everywhere," Khoury said.
She saw a pink lump on the floor, and — realizing it was her lip due to the presence of the zit she'd just cropped from her photo — she wrapped it in a napkin and rode with her cousin to the emergency room.
Despite their quick response, the surgeons, unfortunately, weren’t able to save Khoury’s upper lip. Later that week, she posted a selfie from her hospital bed, writing, “hug somebody you love.” She decided to document every part of her healing journey because, even in her skateboarding posts, she always showed the good and bad — including falls.
"Life is not perfect," she told PEOPLE. "Instagram is a place where people can hide who they really are."
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