Charla Nash

Charla Nash, Chimp Attack Victim, Reveals New Face in First Interview (VIDEO)

It’s been a long, rocky road for Charla Nash .

You may remember that Charla was brutally attacked by a friend’s pet chimp back in 2009. Travis the chimp tore off her nose, hands, eyelids, and lips.

Nash was left blind and so disfigured she had to wear a veil when going out in public.

You can see some of Charla’s before and after photos here.

After a full face transplant, Nash has begun going out of her house once again, no longer worried that her appearance would scare people.

Back in August, we showed you some still photos of Charla’s new face, but she was too weak to give an interview.

This morning, she revealed her new face in an exclusive interview on the TODAY show.

“Wow. You really look fantastic,” Meredith Vieira, who returned to TODAY to cover this story, told Nash. “I’m just—I— I apologize. I’m looking at your face and I am in awe.”

Because she was left blind after the brutal attack, Nash can’t see her own face. She can’t even feel it either…the chimp attack also took her hands.

Charla has to rely on the feedback of others.

“I’ve had people tell me I’m beautiful,” Nash told Vieira. “And they were not telling me I was beautiful before.”

Nash got her new face in a groundbreaking, 20-hour triple transplant procedure. Doctors replaced not only her face, but also the two hands that had been ripped off.

The face survived the operation. Unfortunately, there were problems with the hands. Because Nash developed pneumonia shortly after the surgery, her circulation suffered and the hands began to deteriorate.

Doctors made the decision to remove them.

On the bright side, doctors think she might be able to try a hand transplant again in as little as a year.

Charla’s face will also keep healing over the coming year, said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“What we have seen is that the face almost blends in and becomes the patient’s own, to the point that I think that regular person passing by will not be even able to tell,” he told TODAY.

See Charla’s first interview in the video above.