When Anthony Loffredo walks on the side walk, people gasp, cross the road or stop and stare. Uber drivers turn him away. Restaurants refuse to serve him.
He can’t secure an interview — never mind a job — and it took him a year before the Mexican government issued him an ID card.
This is because the 35-year-old has traded in his former life as a ‘very sexy guy’ who bounced for nightclubs to chase his extreme goal of becoming a ‘black alien‘.
He has had his nose amputated, ears cut off, eyeballs and skin tattooed black, tongue sliced in two, teeth shaven and two of his fingers removed. He also has demonic symbols burned into his flesh and horns implanted underneath his skin.
Mr Loffredo, who is originally from France, says he has now had more surgeries than he can remember.
But he says he is only 65 percent of the way there. He also has plans to cut off one of his legs and replace it with a biomechanical one.
He embarked on his journey at the age of 26, after deciding he wasn’t happy with his appearance — and wanting to get surgeries to look like his real self.
‘Yes, [I was] happy, but not in the right body,’ he revealed to the UK’s Channel 4 in an episode aired last year. ‘It [wasn’t] my body, my real body.’
Speaking on Club 113 podcast, he added — in Spanish: ‘I started this project because it is something that really draws my attention.
‘I’m fascinated, it fascinates me — everything, the human body.
‘[My look is inspired by] a bit of everything, because no one knows what is out there.’
He began his transformation without telling his parents, with the pair initially shocked by the shift — although they later supported him.
He added: ‘I went to their house on Christmas day, the first 15 minutes they looked at me in a weird way, but ok, then, all good.
‘It’s likely they were a bit sad, but since I was little my mom always allowed me to do whatever I wanted.’
The shocked reactions many have had, however, haven’t stopped him from finding love.
Last December, it was revealed that he was dating the model and tattoo enthusiast Melina Shakur.
The two revealed their relationship in a video posted online, which Mr Loffredo revealed with the caption saying she was his ‘girlfriend’.
They have since posted explicit videos of themselves kissing with their forked tongues on show.
Mr Loffredo is part of the extreme body modifications community, or those who have voluntary and unconventional alterations with little social acceptance.
These often require specialized surgery and may be irreversible, with Mr Loffredo having to travel to other country’s to get them — because they are illegal at home.
They involve receiving general anesthesia in shady underground clinics and tattoo shops.
Other famous members of the community include the transgender Dragon lady Tiamat Legion Medusa.
The Texan made international headlines in 2019 after receiving hundreds of body mods to become a genderless reptile.
In another case, Tom Leppard from Scotland had spots tattooed over 99.2 percent of his body so that he looked like a leopard. He died in 2016 at the age of 80 years.
But the black alien may now be having doubts about his transformation.
The latest part of the alien modifications — the leg amputation — appears to have been delayed since he entered the relationship.
He revealed in January that he didn’t want to get further procedures, saying he did not regret the changes but that now he wanted to do something new.
‘Right now, I am going to focus on something real,’ he said in Spanish, ‘not more on how to live life’.
In a post in February on Instagram, he wrote the caption: ‘Sometimes, dreams can’t come true — so we start using 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, where it appeared that they were discussing having some of his tattoos removed.
The first procedure he got was to receive a forked tongue, before it was followed with dozens of other operations.
These have also included implants into his arms and head, dying his teeth blue and making incisions into his face.
He reveals his transformation online regularly, with his account on Instagram alone having 1.3million followers.
Many of his videos are hit with negative comments including those saying he has a ‘mental illness’, ‘childhood trauma’ or saying ‘dude, no one is a fan’.
But, through it all, he says his parents have continued to stick by him — although they were a little shocked with his initial transformation.
His mother speaks to him almost every day, he told Channel 4 last year, but his father has now died from cancer.