How Can You Tell When a Celebrity Got Plastic Surgery?

We keep pretty close tabs on the world of plastic surgery news, so it doesn’t surprise us when “rumors” of celebrity plastic surgery start spreading. Usually there will be one or two celebs who post something on their Instagram feed or who hit the red carpet for the first time in a while—and they’re singled out because something looks…different.

This can take a few different forms of course. In many cases, it’s about a breast augmentation or liposuction. In other cases the rumors swirl around Botox. And in a fair number of instances, plastic surgeons are trotted out to speculate on what this line means or that blemish is all about.

There’s a serious cottage industry composed of these articles. And, to a certain extent, they’re pretty harmless. They even give us inspiration on occasion, as well as cause to discuss this procedure or that procedure. But it’s worth talking about this; how can you tell when a celebrity got plastic surgery? When they admit it.

Can You Use Clues?

Certainly a confession isn’t the only way to suss out whether a Megan Fox got her lips augmented or Rihanna got a nose job, right? Well, if you’re talking terms of 100% certainty, it really is. Sure, you can compare images of Megan Fox’s nose pre-Transformers and post-Transformers.

But the problem with celebrities and pictures is that, well, pictures lie. That’s the whole way you get to become a celebrity: by developing an exaggerated notion of beauty (okay, it’s way more complicated, but that’s at least a component for many celebs).

In other words, many celebrities already have non surgical tips and tricks to enhance their beauty:

• Beauty makeup: You’d be surprised what the application of eye shadow can do. The fact of the matter is that we get so accustomed to celebrities with their makeup on that when they change it up and try a different style, they can look like a different person (or that they had work done).
• Contouring: This is another makeup trick. Contouring is a way of using makeup to create shadows and highlights. This can actually make your breasts look bigger or your nose look different. And trust me, celebs (or their makeup artists) are highly skilled in this technique.
• Photoshop: When your brand is beauty, there’s going to be significant pressure to use Photoshop or other photo manipulation tools. Most celebrity images you see have gone through some kind of processing. That’s true for television and films as well. There are plenty of celebrities who you have probably never seen without some kind of touch up having been performed.

When all we have to go on is rumor and innuendo, it really is difficult to look at an image or look at some video of someone’s face and claim that Botox has been performed.

Now, there might be a suspicion that cosmetic surgery has been performed. But there’s a long way between suspicion and certainty. So, in most cases, it’s important to remember that, until the celebrity confirms the rumor, a rumor is all it is.