I'VE LOST 3ST FOR FACELIFT ON THE NET

ARABELLA Churchill has lost three stone - so she can have the world's most public facelift live on the Internet.

The granddaughter of wartime leader Winston Churchill was found to be too overweight and unfit for surgery after she read in the Sunday Mirror about the offer of a free facelift for a celebrity willing to go online and applied for it.

So she lost three stone in weight, stopped smoking - and the op will go ahead on February 14. Los Angeles-based surgeon Dr Richard Ellenbogen backed out of the operation when he first saw Arabella's medical records last May. He said: "Her condition could have compromised her safety in surgery as well as the results.

"Her weight loss, positive attitude, and lifestyle changes have made me reconsider."

Arabella, who lives with husband Haggis, a professional juggler, in Glastonbury, Somerset, weighed 15 stone and smoked 40-60 cigarettes a day.

She said: "My father, Randolph, smoked 60 a day and my grandfather was rarely seen without his cigar."

But she has confounded doctors by qualifying for the surgery she hopes will restore some of the youthful beauty which made her the Deb of the Year at 18.

She said: "At 50 I certainly have no desire to look like a Barbie doll but very much myself, just a bit less lined, a bit younger and more relaxed."

She will show a video diary of how she beat the bulge on US breakfast show Good Morning, America.

And the site showing the operation, www. celebritydoctor.com, has been valued at pounds 30million by its creator, American PR guru Michael Sands.

"I really don't like publicity much at all," Arabella said.

"But an advantage of having surgery done so publicly is that the surgeon is sure as hell going to do his very best to make it a fantastic success. I like that."