Oct 03, 2007 12:39 PM EST

In the days before he became violent, in the days before he threatened to chop off Kimberly Bell's head and leave her body in a ditch, Barry Bonds would stand in front of a mirror and fret about how steroids were changing his body.

His body had grown thicker, his back was pocked with acne, his hair had fallen out and his testicles had shriveled when Bonds asked his former mistress if she thought anyone would suspect he was on the juice.

"Do I look bloated?" Bonds wanted to know. "Does it look funny? Do you think this is obvious?"

"I don't see how anyone could not have known, but everybody looked the other way," said Bell, who claims the slugger admitted using the juice to her in 1999. "He surrounds himself with yes people. I don't think he ever considered where this would lead, and as long as he was selling tickets, the Giants were going to cater to him."

Via New York Daily News