Once one of the more stigmatized types of plastic surgery, facelifts are no longer something to hide. These days, celebrities—of all ages and fame levels—now speak openly about getting nipped and tucked, sometimes even documenting the entire process on social media. Here, we rounded up what 17 celebrities have said about their facelifts and asked New York City board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich to weigh in.
Marc Jacobs
The fashion designer shared his recovery from a deep plane facelift with his 1.7 million Instagram followers in July 2021. His post-surgery selfie (complete with bandages and drainage tubes), which he captioned with #livelovelift, garnered nearly 55,000 likes. He continued to post daily photos documenting the recovery process, a decision his doctor, New York City board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Jacono, praised.
“A big frustration is that people in the public eye who have means seem to be genetic mutants and make the rest of us feel like we’re not up to par. But the truth is, there’s a certain point in life where you can’t fix things without surgery. The people who look good never talk about it, so it only adds to the confusion. When someone of Marc’s status is sharing, it helps people realize that there are things we all can do to maintain ourselves and enhance our appearance,” said Jacono in a Vogue feature. Dr. Vasyukevich agrees: “Educating the public on the benefits of a facelift and reducing the stigma associated with cosmetic facial rejuvenation is helpful to many people who are unhappy with their appearance.”
Kris Jenner
The momager extraordinaire famously underwent a combination of a facelift and neck lift prior to daughter Kim’s marriage to Kris Humprhies in 2011. (And in true Kardashian fashion, it was, of course, captured for the cameras on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.) She told MailOnline that part of her decision was based on Kim’s taunting: “Kim used to call me gobble gobble,” she said.
According to Dr. Vasyukevich, pairing a neck lift and a facelift is a smart choice. “Doing both procedures together can accomplish a balanced facial rejuvenation and make the result look more natural,” he explains. “Sagging typically happens in both the lower face and neck simultaneously. Having a tight jawline and sagging neck—or the opposite, a tight neck and visible jowls—rarely happens naturally. When people see this, they immediately suspect that it’s a result of cosmetic surgery.”
Tamra Judge
The Real Housewives of Orange County alum has more recently been documenting her breast explant surgery, though she also underwent a lower facelift in 2017. She shared a series of photos on Instagram detailing the recovery process—scars and all—along with a lengthy caption telling her followers what it was like. “There was little pain and bruising involved (everyone is different) the hardest part for me was staying still for 2 weeks. On day 12 I got the stomach flu which sucked! Today it’s been 17 days and I feel great, my neck is still stiff and my ears and jawline are slightly swollen and numb. That will all change in a few weeks. Incision are behind my ear and hairline, under my chin.”
Vicki Gunvalson
Judge’s former castmate followed her friend’s lead, seeing the same doctor (Dr. Milind Ambe, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Newport Beach, California) for the same procedure a year later. “I went to Tamra’s doctor, ’cause she told me I needed a facelift. So I thought, ‘OK, I gotta listen to Tamra so she doesn’t get mad at me.’ No, but God love Tamra, she tells me how it is,” Gunvalson told Entertainment Tonight. She revealed she was very happy with the result and that it also inspired her to stop getting injectable fillers. “I’m never doing another filler, another anything. I’m just leaving it alone, ’cause he said once you start doing that, it becomes, ‘I wanna do more and more and more and more.’ He said it was like granulated sugar underneath my skin, of all these different areas that had been injected. So I didn’t even look like myself anymore,” she said.
Courtney Love
In 2014, Love revealed that she’d had a facelift before she even turned 40—at the suggestion of a fellow celebrity. “Nobody ask me about aging gracefully, pleeease,” she said. “C’mom, I took advice from Goldie Hawn when she said I should get a facelift at 35!” While it may seem young for a facelift, Dr. Vasyukevich says that the typical age for his patients undergoing a mini facelift is between 30 and 40. “The drawback to doing it this young is not getting a ‘drastic’ rejuvenation, though this is exactly what most people who do facelifts this early in life are trying to avoid,” he explains. Still, for those who do choose to have a facelift at a younger age, another, typically more extensive facelift is usually needed by the time they reach their 50s or 60s, he adds.
Janice Dickinson
Dickinson’s shifting appearance has been a source of speculation for years. The plastic surgery aficionado even appeared on E’s Botched in 2014, to address rippling in her implants. “I am no stranger to plastic surgery,” she says during the episode. “I’ve had a facelift, a brow lift, tummy tuck, and fillers.”
Jane Fonda
In her 2018 documentary, Jane Fonda in Five, the then 80-year old actress shared that she regretted having undergone plastic surgery. (She had previously admitted to having facelifts, breast implants, and work done around her eyes and jawline.) “On one level, I hate the fact that I’ve had the need to alter myself physically to feel that I’m OK,” she said. “I wish I wasn’t like that. I love older faces. I love lived-in faces. I loved Vanessa Redgrave’s face.” Two years later, she told Elle Canada that she was done with plastic surgery entirely. “I can’t pretend that I’m not vain, but there isn’t going to be any more plastic surgery—I’m not going to cut myself up anymore.”
Sonja Morgan
The Real Housewives of New York City star opted for a deep plane facelift and neck lift after season 12 of the show wrapped in 2020. “I just wanted to be rid of the wrinkling on my neck and the jowels that were starting to form. People thought I was nuts because it was so subtle. But not to me! It was a no-brainer – gravity had taken its toll, I was also exhausted and I needed a ‘pick me up.’ I entrusted my face to the best @drjacono [New York City board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Jacono] and he hit it out of the park,” she captioned her before and after photos on Instagram.
“A deep plane facelift is performed on a deeper level, releasing the ligaments that are holding the soft tissue to the bones of the face. This allows for a more significant elevation of the sagging skin,” says Dr. Vasyukevich of how this technique differs from a traditional face lift. Indeed, Morgan’s tightened jawline and neck had viewers buzzing during the following season of RHONY.
Sharon Osbourne
Osbourne first had a facelift in 2019 and, while she was happy with the results, shared that she experienced longterm numbness around her mouth after the fact. She went under the knife again just two years later, something that Dr. Vasyukevich says is fairly uncommon. Still, this could happen if a patient in their 50s or 60s has a mini facelift, realizes that it wasn’t enough to address all the signs of aging, and then chooses to have another facelift a year or two after the fact, he notes. While Osbourne didn’t reveal exactly why she chose to have another facelift so soon after her first, she did tell The Sunday Times the recovery was very challenging. “I had a full facelift done in October, and I looked like one of those f*cking mummies that they wrap. It hurt like hell. You have no idea. I’m telling you, it was horrendous. I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be f*cking joking.’ One eye was different to the other. I looked like a f*cking Cyclops. I’m like, ‘All I need is a hunchback,’” she said. The fact that her two facelifts were performed in such short order may have been a contributing factor. “Poor healing and excessive scarring would be a concern with two facelifts being done close together,” says Dr. Vasyukevich.
Kathy Griffin
The outspoken comedian certainly isn’t one to shy away from plastic surgery—or talking about it. She’s spoken about how she got a rhinoplasty and liposuction early in her career as she struggled to find her place in Hollywood. However, in 2015, she told Fitness magazine that she was done with all kinds of plastic surgery. “I’ve been off the junk, as I call it, for five years. I’ve had a facelift, eye job, and all that stuff five years ago. What I found though was that it didn’t help me one bit. It didn’t get me happier or didn’t make me look particularly younger,” she said.
Shannon Storms Beador
At the season 16 RHOC reunion, 58-year-old Storms Beador shared that her reunion prep involved some serious surgery. “I had a facelift five weeks ago,” she told host Andy Cohen. “And then the surgeon called John [her boyfriend] and said, ‘I’ve never cut more skin out of a neck in my entire career than I have with Shannon,’” she added.
Joan Rivers
There’s arguably no celebrity whose name is more synonymous with plastic surgery. While the late star once joked that she’d had more than 700 procedures, in a memoir about her mother’s life, Melissa Rivers revealed that the exact number was actually 348. On an episode of 20/20, Joan Rivers told Barbara Walters that this included, among other things, two facelifts, a breast reduction, liposuction, a tummy tuck, Botox, and fillers. “We’re in a society where looks count … and all the beautiful women lie and say, ‘I’ve done nothing,’ and that is so unfair. And I just want women to know it’s okay, do it.”
Gene Simmons
The KISS frontman and his wife, Shannon Tweed, opted for his-and-hers facelifts in 2017, undergoing surgery one day apart. While it may seem like a strange take on date night, Dr. Vasyukevich says it’s actually a very common occurrence. “Getting a facelift together becomes an experience that couples can share, and common experiences strengthen the relationship. It’s like traveling together. Many couples do facelifts on the same day or separate them by a week or two so they can take care of each other,” he says. Still, male facelifts and female facelifts aren’t exactly the same. “The technique is similar, but the extent and the direction of the pull is different. We apply different aesthetic criteria to a male facelift, to preserve gender identity. In particular, more attention is usually required to improve the neck and lower face sagging, and the elevation of the cheeks is typically less than in a female facelift,” Dr. Vasyukevich explains. The recovery process is also different; incisions typically heal faster in men than in women, but swelling lingers longer in men, he says.
Emily Simpson
In 2021, Simpson saw Dr. Siamak Agha, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Newport Beach, California, for a breast fat transfer (after removing her implants), and opted to undergo a facelift at the same time. “I also asked @drsiamakagha to do a lower mini facelift because I noticed I had no jawline anymore. I’m sure it’s the result of being 45 but also gaining and losing weight. I noticed the skin was loose, and it really bothered me,” the Real Housewives of Orange County star wrote in an Instagram story.
According to Dr. Vasyukevich, most mini facelifts are designed to be very similar to a lower facelift, hence Simpson’s description of the procedure. It primarily improves the sagging skin around the jawline and may be a better option for younger patients, he says.
Caroline Stanbury
On Thanksgiving, The Real Housewives of Dubai star Caroline Stanbury, 47, revealed her facelift results on Instagram. She captioned the photo, which was taken two weeks post-op, with: “NEW FACE, NEW ME.”
But it wasn’t all smiles. Stanbury traveled from London to Los Angeles for surgery and shared on her podcast that she didn’t initially like her results, and her husband also alluded to the tough recovery in a separate Instagram post. “Seeing the person that you love with all your heart suffering and in pain how she was… it was very hard,” he wrote alongside a video of her immediately after surgery. All is well now though, as evidenced by the caption’s conclusion: “Thank you Dr. Kim @skplasticsurgery for taking the best care of my wife. Amazing job!”
Julie Chen Moonves
In her audio memoir, the CBS TV personality opened up about getting a facelift, saying it was her 2018 departure from The Talk that spurred her decision. “You know how some people, when they get broken up with by a loved one, they get a revenge body? Well, I wanted to get a revenge face. Getting the lower facelift was definitely part of ‘my job’ because I’m expected to look not drastically different from season to season or how people are used to seeing me on TV,” she said. She added that plastic surgery felt like a form of healing and a way to prove “these meanies can’t get me down.”
Sia
At the 5th annual Daytime Beauty Awards in October, the 47-year-old singer, who has famously covered her face with wigs over the course of her career, presented the Outstanding Achievement in Medicine award to Dr. Ben Talei, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California. In her speech, she confirmed that the surgeon had given her a facelift, saying, “I’m a pop star that normally hides my face and doesn’t lie about sh*t. I got an amazing face lift from Dr. Talei. He is incredible.”
