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“I plan to win an Oscar. I'm very ambitious.” Growing up in Crested Butte, Colorado where her mother and step-dad owned The Timberline restaurant, Heidi Montag envisioned a future beyond the snow-covered ski slopes and, after high school graduation, moved to San Francisco where she enrolled at the Academy of Art University. There, she befriended a young blonde named Lauren Conrad who just so happened to be on her own path to stardom on MTV’s hit reality series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.

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The duo eventually transferred to the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles just as Montag found herself in the spotlight after appearing on a handful of episodes of Laguna Beach. Before long, she was yet another household name on MTV as she and Conrad starred in their own spin-off series known as The Hills. Add in a growing feud between the former besties and it’s no surprise why Montag rose to an entirely new level of fame just as she decided to change her look in 2009, coincidentally on the heels of her marriage to fellow cast member Spencer Pratt.

Deciding to change almost everything about her appearance, Montag’s jaw-dropping transformation is among the most drastic and sudden Hollywood has ever seen as the 22-year-old set out to do anything and everything possible to achieve “perfection” in her looks. Having already gone under the knife a few times before, Montag chose to have most of the work done in one surgery by having her surgeon reshape, nip, tuck and tighten 10 parts of her body. She spent over $1 million for a second breast enhancement and rhinoplasty in addition to Botox injections in her forehead, a brow lift, fat injections in her cheeks, a chin reduction, liposuction on her neck and legs, pinning her ears back and having her back scooped out to create a curvier silhouette. Nope, we’re not kidding!

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Sadly, the former Hills star failed to realize the extensive healing process of having so many procedures at once and felt as though the pain would eventually kill her. My head “felt like it had a jackhammer on it,” she said. “I couldn’t talk because of my jaw and chin.” However, after she recovered, Montag was thrilled with the results. “I love my body…I’ve never felt more beautiful and sexier,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know I could have this much confidence. I see an upgraded version of me. It’s a new face and a new energy.”

Becoming the center of widespread criticism across tabloids and social media outlets around the world, Montag tried to use her rekindled fame to launch her career in the music industry but, whether it was her singing or the surgeries, she failed to find any success. Instead, she’s continued to tour the reality television circuit with appearances on Celebrity Big Brother. Celebrity Wife Swap and Marriage Boot Camp in addition to a one-time film role in the 2011 comedy Just Go With It and minor documentaries about her relationship with Pratt.

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And, speaking of her relationship with her former costar and longtime boyfriend, Montag is the first to admit that their early marriage was filled with her constant obsession over her looks and the results of her surgery, which she says Pratt begged her not to do. Refusing to listen, Montag says that most of the $10 million they earned early in their careers is now gone as they both face the harsh reality that their future might involve something beyond the spotlight. However, not even that reality is enough to make Montag miss The Hills. “I don’t want to ever watch it,” she said. “I think that it was hard enough going through it at that time and I was just way in over my head. I had no idea what I was getting into.”

Today, the 30-year-old takes full responsibility for her surgeries and her floundering career but doesn’t doubt that The Hills led her straight to the operating table. “I think that I just became so consumed by this character that I was playing that I became that girl,” she said. Now learning to embrace her beauty for what it is, it hasn’t been easy for Montag who says, “People have fewer scars from car accidents than I have on my body. I’m always going to feel like Edward Scissorhands.” Despite her waning popularity, the former reality television star is using her mistake to actively warn young girls not to follow her example. “You risk your life when you go under the knife is that worth your life? I hope that people hear what’s I’m saying about plastic surgery…I would take it all back. I almost risked everything, all my relationships and myself, for vanity.”