Usually a makeover is a good thing — a new look often makes a person feel more confident,
attractive, or just reinvented.
However, makeovers can render some people unrecognizable, and that can pose a problem
— especially in Hollywood, where a big part of a celebrity's relevance, and paycheck,
stems from having a recognizable mug.
Let's take a closer look at the famous faces whose careers suffered major downturns after
going under the knife.
Jennifer Grey
Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey stood out in the 1980s because of her distinctive, adorable
nose.
When she went under the knife in 1989, her career shrunk along with her face.
It was such a dramatic difference that even close friends didn't recognize her.
Grey used the gossip surrounding her new face as an ongoing gag in a 1999 sitcom, It's Like,
You Know, in which she played herself.
She told Newsweek of the series,
"I said, 'Let's talk about all the things that people say behind my back.
Let's let me say them, you know?
Let's have fun with the absurdity that is my life.
[...] Every interview I do just becomes anatomy of a nose."
Sadly, the show didn't take off, and Grey still regrets the procedure.
She told The Mirror in 2012,
"I went into the ­operating room a celebrity and came out anonymous.
It was the nose job from hell.
I'll always be this once-famous actress nobody ­recognizes because of a nose job."
Tara Reid
After getting her big break in The Big Lebowski, Tara Reid parlayed her success into supporting
roles in 1999's American Pie and its sequels, as well as Josie and the Pussycats and Van
Wilder.
Unfortunately for Reid, when she went under the knife in 2004 for breast implants and
liposuction, her career took a hit, and her body in worse shape than it started.
She told CBS News,
"My stomach became the most ripply, bulgy thing.
I had a hernia, this huge bump next to my belly button.
As a result, I couldn't wear a bikini.
I lost a lot of work."
Reid reportedly got her procedures reversed in 2006, but the damage to her career sent
her straight to Sharknado.
She told People in 2008,
"In my American Pie days, everyone was kissing my butt.
I didn't realize how good I had it.
I'm scared about getting surgery ever again.
It's like surviving a plane crash and getting on a plane again.
[My stomach scars] are my battle wounds."
Lisa Rinna
Actress Lisa Rinna became virtually unrecognizable after lip fillers gone wrong in the mid-'80s.
She told the Today show in 2013,
"OK.
Here's the story: 25 years ago, I had my lips injected…"
"Right."
"...with silicone."
Saying it was a stupid thing to do in her twenties, she explained that over time:
"They get hard.
It's gross.
They are now whatever that was after they took out as much of the silicone as they could."
Many speculated that Rinna's puffy pout cost her a lot of work in Hollywood; she's been
relegated to small TV roles for the bulk of her career and is now known primarily for
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
She reportedly got so tired of the scrutiny surrounding her mouth that she went under
the knife again in 2016 to shrink her upper lip.
She said on her reality show Harry Loves Lisa,
"People really started to define me by my lips.
And I got really tired of that to be honest with you."
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke took a break from acting in the early 1990s to pursue a boxing career
— and paid a steep price with his once devastatingly handsome face.
He underwent a series of plastic surgeries to try to correct the results of his boxing
injuries, but the outcome hurt his prospects in Hollywood.
He told The Daily Mail,
"Most of it was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing, but I went to the wrong
guy to put my face back together.
[...] I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone.
I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations
to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn't healing properly."
Rourke finally got most of the bad work minimized, and his career has since picked up, with roles
in Sin City, Iron Man 2, The Expendables, and The Wrestler.
Still, Rourke isn't done going under the knife.
In October 2017, he posted about yet another nose job to correct prior work, remarking,
"Now I am pretty again."
Lara Flynn Boyle
A heartthrob on Twin Peaks in the '90s, Lara Flynn Boyle was just as stunning during her
tenure on The Practice.
However, around the early 2000s, her lips began to look noticeably larger, and her work
began to dwindle.
That may well be because the brunette beauty has become almost unrecognizable, but Boyle's
struggles may actually be a symptom of a larger problem in Hollywood.
She told The Mail On Sunday,
"I know I may be running out of time.
There are just not that many roles for older women.
On a vanity level, I am not looking forward to aging at all."
— And for the record, she said that when she was just 32 years old.
Lil' Kim
Once rap's Queen Bee, Lil' Kim went platinum with Hard Core and won a Grammy for her part
in "Lady Marmalade".
Unfortunately, the pint-sized hip-hop powerhouse hasn't had a hit since 2005's "Lighter's Up."
While part of that could certainly be due to the changing nature of the music industry,
another part may be due to her drastically different appearance.
In 2005, Kim told Hot 97 she got a nose job, then another rhinoplasty after suffering a
broken nose at the hands of an abusive ex.
"You had to fix your nose, too, at one point.
Right?
"Mm.
I had fixed it already and then after that it was broken, so."
"So you had to go again."
But she denied getting any other work done.
Experts, however, disagree.
Dr. Jennifer Levine, who hasn't treated Lil' Kim, told Us Weekly,
"It's clear that there has been some skin bleaching.
[...] She could have had Botox injections under the jaw for a more chiseled look.
And in case it's not obvious, Kim probably had filler injected into her cheeks."
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan was America's sweetheart, but by 2003, she looked like a different person.
That, combined with the ending of her marriage to Dennis Quaid, and taking on roles that
didn't match her "girl next door" image, damaged her career.
Dr. Mark Youssef, a plastic surgeon who hasn't treated Ryan, gave a long list of possible
changes to Hollywood Life:
"The most obvious thing that she's had done is some sort of filler or fat transfer to
her cheek.
[...] The tip [of her nose] looks more pinched, so it's very possible that she had some sort
of rhinoplasty.
[...] She's had too much Botox in the forehead.
[…] The surgery that most drastically changes the shape of the face is a facelift.
[…] It's possible because the shape of her face has changed so much."
The media attention didn't help.
A source told People,
"All of the tabloid attention really shook her up.
She was deeply troubled by it.
It contributed to her stepping away [from Hollywood]."
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith's career peaked in 1988 with her Oscar nomination for Working Girl.
But unfortunately, she started going under the knife in 1995, according to the Daily
Mail, supposedly opting for procedures to her lips and possibly a facelift — which
didn't restore her natural beauty.
When Porter magazine asked Griffith if she realized how much her surgeries negatively
impacted her star power in Hollywood, she replied,
"No, I didn't [realize] until people started saying, 'Oh my god, what has she done?'
I was so hurt.
I went to a different doctor, and he started dissolving all of this s--t that this other
woman doctor had put in.
Hopefully, I look more normal now."
But the hyper-critical hordes of social media users have not been kind.
Griffith told Us Weekly in 2012,
"Most people are telling me I look horrible.
The tweets I get are are really nasty."
Heidi Montag
"...Am I smiling?"
In fairness to Heidi Montag, The Hills star had not yet established a huge career when
the series ended.
But getting 10 plastic surgeries in a single day in 2010, after she'd already done her
boobs and nose, didn't extend her 15 minutes of fame.
"I had my nose redone.
I had my own fat injected into my cheeks."
She also got a brow lift, lipo, scooping out of her back, breast implants, and chin shaving
— and she reportedly regrets it all.
She said on The Doctors,
"SoI think I made all these decisions too quickly.
I made it all in one month.
I said, 'Great, let's do it.
I didn't have a year to think about it."
Montag and her co-star husband, Spencer Pratt, went broke following all that work.
She revealed on The View,
"A majority of [the money] is gone.
There's agents, lawyers, managers, taxes, hair and makeup […] It just kind of caught
up with us, and it was a lot and it was really overwhelming."
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