Swan Contestant Kelly Becker on Her Experience, Looking Back (Exclusive)

The early 2000s reality television scene boasted such long-running favorites as Survivor and The Real World, but also brought a new subgenre of makeover shows including Extreme Makeover and The Swan.

The Swan premiered on Fox on April 7, 2004, and followed a group of women who called themselves “ugly ducklings,” transforming them through exercise, dental work, cosmetic surgery and wardrobe and makeup changes, in addition to therapy. The series ran for two seasons; each ended with a pageant, in which one woman was named “The Swan” following her makeover.

While many viewers and critics argued that the show went too far — PEOPLE called it “TV’s most controversial makeover series” in a late 2004 catchup with contestants — several of the women who participated have expressed their continued happiness with the experiences through the years.

One such Swan is Kelly Berdyck, née Becker, 46, who appeared on season 1. Here, she reflects on the experience with PEOPLE, in her own words.

We all came from something we wanted to change in our lives. We just all came from something in our life that hindered us. For me, it was bullying in middle school. Back then, I never talked to anybody about it, not even my parents. I went to a Catholic school, and I was supposed to go 1st through 8th grade and it stopped at 5th grade. So for those three years of middle school, I had to merge with another Catholic school.

And that’s where little cliques were formed. And some of my close girlfriends, who my parents really knew their parents well after all the years, some of the girls just decided, ‘We’re popular, you’re not, and we’re going to make fun of you.’ And so I was picked on, and it was really hard to see where that was coming from because these were former friends, and I didn’t understand cliques, and I didn’t understand just being mean to people for no reason. And so I didn’t want to tell my mom and dad about it because they were friends with those people’s parents — I didn’t want to make them sad.

I was driving one day, I lived in Milwaukee at the time, and I heard an ad on the radio asking if anybody was interested in a ‘life transformation.’ They really didn’t touch on what it all involved, but it was like, ‘If you’re stuck in a rut, if you’re looking for a life transformation, we have a team of experts that can help.’ And it was so out of my character, I don’t know why I put this down on the calendar, but I did, and I went to auditions at the Hilton Hotel in Milwaukee.

There, they brought six girls into this conference room they rented out, the production people, and they just asked us, ‘If there was anything you could change about yourself, what would you change?’ And this was the first time I ever talked about the bullying. I said, ‘Well, I really would love to fix my nose.’ It was crooked and I was teased a lot for it. And I might’ve been that kid that had braces and acne and a crooked nose and … I was just bullied a lot for my looks in middle school.

So when I talked about my nose and how that was something I would like to change, I just started to tear up because that was the first time I ever said anything about it to anybody. So they told me to come back the next day. Then, they were a little more clear on what the show was going to involve. And that was, of course, plastic surgery. It was therapy. It was having a personal trainer, a life coach to guide you in your dreams and your goals and career. It was a cosmetic dentist. So it was a big, big team of experts. They called it a ‘dream team.’

A few weeks later, they called and said that they would like to fly me out to Los Angeles. They went all over the U.S. casting and they narrowed it down to 200 girls, I believe. And they flew us all into this hotel by LAX, and that’s where we got to meet with the plastic surgeon, the cosmetic dentist, the therapist. They got a feel for us, if we were someone they could work on or work with. And they narrowed it down from there. And then I remember being put in this big conference room and there were all the Fox executives. It was a big boardroom table and a there was a little camcorder on the tripod. And there I was talking to all these people. I was so nervous. And after I left those four days in Los Angeles, I didn’t know if I was chosen or not.

A few weeks after that, I got a phone call — it was very short notice, and I was told I was going to be flown out a couple weeks later — I was one of the 18 chosen.

It was interesting meeting with the plastic surgeon because they look at you and they say what they would change about you, and you can say if it’s something you would want done or not. And I remember one of the things they talked about, I guess my face was very flat and they wanted to add some structure to it. So they wanted to put cheek implants and a chin implant in my face, which is a hard piece of silicone. In the end, I decided to get it done.

But one of the interesting things he suggested, and that he did, was an earlobe reduction. I never even had super-long earlobes or wore those earrings that make the hole drag. In his eyes, they hung a little, so he cut them a bit and shortened them.

We had no idea we were going to go through the whole show without seeing ourselves in a mirror. I had an iPod, and on the back of it was a reflective surface, so they covered it up. I roomed with one other Swan and they went through everything we brought to take away anything that was reflective so we wouldn’t see ourselves. And that was something that was decided, I think, right before we got there, like, ‘Let’s do this without letting these girls see themselves in a mirror.’ They even took deodorant spray and they would go in our rooms pretty much every other day and lightly spray the TV surface, the faucets, everything that would have some kind of a reflective surface. And I believe the reason was so you could focus more internally on things that were bothering you.

Some women were cheated on. Some had small children. We all had different stories and they wanted you to focus more internally on working on yourself versus externally. And in the end, they wanted it to be very dramatic when you see yourself for the first time.

A lot of what I had done was mainly face. They gave all of us pretty much an eyebrow lift and veneers. And then I had some mole removal on my face, rhinoplasty, the cheek and chin implants. And then they did a little bit of lipo and took a little bit of fat out of the outside hips to inject it into the face and the lips. That was pretty much what I had done. I had a lot more face work, where some of the girls had some face and more body work done. I was out there for about three-and-a-half months.

The day we got to see ourselves, they took us to this mansion out in Holmby Hills. This doorman opens the door and I walk out and there’s all the panel of experts: the surgeon, the therapist, the trainer, the creator of the show. They’re all clapping for you and you’re all dolled up and you’re about to see yourself for the first time.

I remember walking up to these really tall, long curtains. And Amanda Byram, the host of the show, was asking me how I was feeling, and said I was about to see myself for the first time. When the curtains opened, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ I was very happy. It was me and I could tell it was me, but it also didn’t look like me — I was only maybe three months into healing. After a good year, I would say stuff settled down and that was more the true result. It takes time to heal. But when I saw myself, I felt good about myself internally, too. I really did the therapy. It was something I wasn’t sure why I didn’t just do later on in life just to work out some of those hurt feelings. But in that moment, my insides matched my outsides,

We knew this was the big controversial part: We knew there was going to be a Swan pageant in the end, that we were all going to be in this pageant. We all thought we were going to go and show off our new confidence, our new looks. And in the end — I think it was probably for TV to make things more dramatic and interesting for the viewers — they decided to pit us against one another. And we had no idea we were going to go up against another girl. And so half of the girls went home and the other half continued onto this pageant.

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The next day they put us back in those same outfits and brought us back to that mansion. At that moment, I honestly felt like whatever was going to happen, I was going to be okay with it, because after three-and-a-half months, you miss your family. I had a boyfriend at the time who I now have been married to for 13 years, I was missing him. And you miss your everyday way of life — driving a car, eating what you want and not having constant Jenny Craig boxes delivered. You just wanted to get back into your life and you missed family. And I was always very close with my family. So at that moment, I was like, ‘You know what? I would love to go onto the pageant. I think that’d be exciting. I made really great friends here. I don’t want to see that end.’ But the other half of me was like, ‘If I don’t get chosen, I’m also ready to continue with life and go after my dreams.’ Truly from the whole experience, I became more outgoing, more talkative.

And in the end, I was told I was not going to continue onto the pageant. At that moment, I hugged Sarina, who I was up against; we just looked at each other, we were smiling. And for the girls that weren’t chosen, the host takes you off to the side and talks with you a little bit about how you’re feeling and things like that. And then she said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’ And then those fancy doors opened up and there was my family walking in. They were flown in and I got to see my mom and my dad and my niece and everything — it was wonderful.

I have to say there was that moment of questioning, ‘Why wasn’t I chosen?’ I would’ve loved to have been out there. There was a hint of sadness when I left the pageant because it really brought me back to that feeling when I was teased and not feeling good enough. You have those doubts.

And I’m sure it made for interesting TV, but a lot of viewers called the pageant very sadistic. They asked, ‘How could you do that to women? You build up their confidence and change their looks and tell half of them in a way they’re not good enough to continue on to the pageant?’ I think that and the not seeing yourself in a mirror were two things that made the show either interesting to or despised by people.

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After all these years, a handful of Swans, we’ve formed an unbreakable bond, like a Swan sisterhood. If any of us are going through tough times, we have been there for each other. That is a huge part that I will cherish from that show — it’s something that I never expected would’ve happened from a show, especially one that pit us against each other, which could’ve formed resentment. They were there for me when I went through a really difficult time losing my dad.

Back then, there was nothing truly like The Swan out there. And in today’s society, 20 years later, I mean, if any woman who’s going through a hard time and would want to change themselves physically inside and outside, but maybe doesn’t have the money to do it … I think there’s a lot of women that would still 20 years later jump at the chance to be on a show like this. It would be interesting to see if this comes back to TV. I think there’d be things that would need to be changed a little, too, though.

I’m 46 now and starting to get those lines at the forehead and around the eyes. So it’s in the back of my mind — would I ever toy with a filler or anything like that? Maybe, but I haven’t. And I don’t have regrets at all. A lot of us, when we’ve been asked if we would do it again, I would say probably 90% of us would say yes.

I do wish I didn’t let it the bullies get to me as bad as I did years ago. I wish I could have learned to look past that and to see my worth. I was a kind person. I wish I knew not to let those words hurt me like they did. My parents even said during that time of possibly going on the show — they had no idea. They saw me as a beautiful kiddo. And I think they did feel hurt that I didn’t go to them. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about things when you’re younger and you think you can handle it yourself.

I have two sons now, and I do talk to my kids about trying to be open. Even if you think something will hurt Mom’s feelings, still come to me about everything — and they do. I also talk with my kids every now and then about always being the kind one, and what it could be like if they’re ever faced with bullying; what to do in those situations that can be so hurtful and really affect someone’s life.

I’ve learned wherever you go, wherever you are in life, people are going to have good things to say, they’re going to have bad things to say. And I really have learned to not let that affect me. There’s more to life. You just want to be happy and not let others get you down.