Liat Bello Opens Up About Melasma, Anxiety and Her Long Road Back

Liat Bello, once one of Israel’s best-known reality-TV and teen-drama stars, says she is finally ready to return to the public eye at 42 after years of personal upheaval. In a candid interview published June 25 and updated June 26, she spoke about divorce, her mother’s death, panic attacks and the facial pigmentation that has covered parts of her face in recent years.

Bello first rose to fame on the reality show "The Models" and later became a household name in 2007 with the children’s and youth series "The Island." She went on to work in the Festigal, advertising campaigns and other TV projects, but then largely disappeared from screens. She said the pigmentation, diagnosed as melasma, began about three years ago after a facial treatment, and that multiple doctors, cosmeticians and devices have not helped. "There is no solution," she said she was told by specialists, adding that she has spent a fortune on treatment and is done pouring money into it.

She said comments about her appearance, including people telling her she used to be beautiful, no longer anger her. "I understand if some people think it looks ugly," she said, but added that she now feels more beautiful than ever and goes out without makeup. The harder struggle, she said, is not her skin but anxiety, which has caused blackouts during audition recordings and severe recent panic attacks. A week before the interview, she said, her agent sent her an audition, she had a major attack, and blogger Yuli Spector came to help her film it.

Bello also reflected on the years that forced her out of the spotlight: her mother died about a decade ago, she had a serious car accident, and she divorced Nadav Patal, the father of her daughter Or, after four years. She said she regrets not handling her career differently and admits the breakup and her mother’s death pushed her into isolation. Today she says she and Patal, his wife Romi Efron, and her partner Avishai Tsaglag are raising Or together in a stable, loving arrangement.

She said she has only done a handful of auditions in the past five years but is determined to return to acting and perhaps modeling, despite the industry’s focus on looks. She now also coaches other actors for auditions and says that if she can get through a recent audition while in a panic attack, "there is nothing that will stop me in the future."