Matt Gaetz Is Completely Unrecognizable In Side-By-Side Pics After Rumored Plastic Surgery
Matt Gaetz is a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida, a seat he's held since 2017. While his biography on the official Congress website features an old headshot at the time of writing, his appearance at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July 2024 showed Gaetz with a drastically different face. The rumored plastic or cosmetic surgery that Gaetz has received hasn't been a slow shift either. On X, formerly known as Twitter, two photos compared how different he looked from one day to the next at the RNC.
Matt Gaetz yesterday vs. Matt Gaetz today #RNCConvention pic.twitter.com/qWN6CPifsq
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 18, 2024
Months later, in September 2024, X users were still talking about it. One user shared the infamous photo of Gaetz from the convention with prominent, sky-high, permanently arched eyebrows and captioned it, "Remember when @mattgaetz used a Groupon to get Botox?"
A cosmetic dermatologist spoke with The List on how Gaetz likely achieved his Spock-like face. Board Certified Cosmetic Dermatologist Dr. Mariano Busso, who works out of Beverly Hills and Miami, has not worked with Gaetz but determined what could have caused his drastically different look. The answer does include Botox (but probably not from Groupon, like that one X user joked). "There are two main facial changes between Mr. Gaetz's appearance at the RNC in 2020 and 2024: very heavy Botox and cheek fillers," Busso said. "Botox was performed very heavily on the center of the forehead resulting in a drop of his central eyebrows. The lateral aspect of the eyebrows was left with movement giving that 'Mr. Spock' look with pointy lateral eyebrows." Following the RNC, Busso also told us Kimberly Guilfoyle's fillers aren't hiding her age.
A comedy program quipped about Gaetz's look while mentioning allegations against him
Matt Gaetz has yet to confirm the plastic surgery speculation. However, the above photos from Getty were both taken at Capitol Hill and show Gaetz in December 2017 and July 2024, respectively. In the 2017 photo on the left, the politician seems to have many more lines on his forehead than in the 2024 photo on the right. Gaetz's Spock-brows also seem more prominent in the 2024 snapshot as well.
In May 2023, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" posted a clip of correspondent Desi Lydic analyzing Gaetz's post-rumored-plastic-surgery face. She referenced some sexual misconduct allegations he's received. "There's no moral judgment on my page," Lydic said facetiously. "People get plastic surgery for different reasons. Sometimes it's medical. And sometimes it's so you can trick 16-year-old girls into getting dinner with you. Again, no judgment, all love." Per ABC News, Gaetz received no charges in the Department of Justice's sex trafficking investigation that alleged he had sex with an underage girl (which Gaetz denied). However, the House of Representative's Committee on Ethics has been reviewing many allegations against Gaetz, which also includes sexual misconduct claims, since 2021.
In "The Daily Show" clip, Lydic made the same assessment as Dr. Mariano Busso and said Gaetz seemed to have had Botox and filler, along with a couple other procedures. Gaetz isn't the only one in Donald Trump's circle who has been hit with plastic surgery speculation, and even Melania Trump is unrecognizable after rumored plastic surgery.