Liat Bello Returns to the Spotlight After Years of Loss, Anxiety and Skin Changes

Liat Bello, once one of Israel’s best-known reality-TV and acting personalities, says she is finally ready to come back at 42 after years marked by divorce, her mother’s death, panic attacks and melasma, the pigmentation that has covered her face. In a recent TikTok video, she spoke openly about the condition and said doctors told her there is no cure. “There is nothing to do with it, it will only get worse,” she said. Bello now says she has stopped spending money on treatments, after investing a fortune she could have used to buy a house.

Bello first became famous after appearing on “HaDogmaniyot” in 2005 and later starred in the children’s series “Ha-I” in 2007. She also took part in the Festigal and other projects, but gradually withdrew from the public eye. She said the change began about three years ago, after a facial treatment, and that she has since tried every doctor, beautician and device she could find. Today she says the reactions from strangers hurt less, and that she can understand people who think the pigmentation looks unattractive, even if she wishes her skin were smooth again.

She said the biggest damage is no longer the discoloration itself, but the anxiety it triggers. After a recent audition, she suffered a severe panic attack, with shaking, sweating, a racing pulse and tears, and a friend, YouTuber Yuli Spektor, had to help her learn the lines and submit it. Bello says she has almost stopped auditioning in recent years, yet wants to return to acting and modeling. “I am a character actress,” she said, adding that she refuses to stay home because of fear.

The interview also revisits her personal history. Bello was born in Brazil, adopted as a child, raised in Herzliya and was once an Israeli floor-gymnastics champion. She said the deaths of her mother, a serious car accident and her divorce from Nadav Patal, the father of her daughter Or and now CEO of Fattal Hotel Chain, pushed her into retreat. She worked intermittently in her brother’s restaurant business and says she regrets not handling her career differently. “If I could go back, I would act differently,” she said.

Today she lives with partner Avishai Tzalkag and says she feels calmer than ever. She has no current plans for marriage or more children, though she says she would be open if he wanted that. Bello also says she, Patal, his wife Romi Efron and her own partner now co-parent Or successfully, and they will celebrate the girl’s bat mitzvah together later this year. She says the long road has changed her outlook: she no longer sees herself as a victim and feels “more beautiful than ever.”