When Demi Moore showed up to the New York premiere of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans in January appearing to have aged in reverse, it wasn’t her five-step nighttime skin-care regimen that lit up TikTok. It was praise for whatever doctor may have been behind her youthful glow-up. “It’s not me, but part of me wishes that it was,” joked Dr. Anthony Youn (@tonyyounmd), a Detroit-based plastic surgeon who speculated to his 8.4 million TikTok followers and 1.3 million Instagram followers that Moore had had numerous procedures. Another TikToker, Dr. Jonny Betteridge (@drjb.aesthetics), gushed about Moore in another speculative video with 2.8 million views, “Surgery when done in a skillful and artistic way can transform someone’s appearance and still keep them looking natural.”
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These doctors didn’t know with certainty that Moore had gone under the knife, but they were joining a chorus of people who have scrutinized the actress during her 40-year career. The only difference is that this time the attention wasn’t coming from a tabloid your mom might pick up while in line at the supermarket. The rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels has brought discussion about plastic surgery to the social media stage. And the people doing the speculating are often some of the most qualified to weigh in: the Botox injectors and scalpel-wielding surgeons themselves.
Take Betteridge, a U.K.-based doctor who in 2018 opened a clinic specializing in nonsurgical treatments like fillers. In January, he published a video where he speculated that Brad Pitt had had work done. It went viral, racking up more than 14 million views on Instagram. He since has posted content speculating about how such stars as Sarah Jessica Parker, Bradley Cooper and Martha Stewart retain their good looks.
“My goal is not to be an influencer,” Betteridge says. “Whenever I’m creating content, I make sure that it is educational.” But it’s his posts about celebrities that drive the most clicks. “That’s how you reach a wide audience,” he says. By his estimate, at least 80 percent of the 3,000 inquiries he’s received from potential patients this year are generated by his social media.
Coco Chanel may have said that it’s “up to you to merit the face you have at 50,” but Hollywood long has known that all it takes is a few grand and a tolerance for needles. Still, intel about the best doctors and cutting-edge procedures largely passes through whispers on red carpets and over Polo Lounge lunches. “Most of the time, my best work has never been seen,” says Dr. Ben Talei (@drbentalei), a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon whose patients include Sia. Or, rather, it’s been seen but not detected, and certainly not credited to him.
Social media — which first introduced the masses to face filters as well as the dysmorphia that can result from them — has pushed the cosmetics field into the open. Now, any time a public figure unveils a stunning transformation on the red carpet, there’s an army of cosmetics experts armed with social media consultants and marketing teams who are ready to assess the work.
The doctors lifting the veil on celebrity plastic surgery secrets via TikTok and Instagram say they aren’t doing it to be salacious (that wouldn’t be very good for business, after all) but rather to create more awareness about the possibilities — and limitations — of cosmetic procedures. “People are desperately seeking honest information that’s not tied to any biases,” says Beverly Hills-based Dr. Daniel Barrett (@drdanielbarrett), who has 2.4 million followers on TikTok. “The more we are transparent about what these procedures actually are, what it looks like to have plastic surgery, it’s a positive thing.”
Many also feel responsible for explaining to their followers that most A-listers don’t just wake up looking red carpet-ready. “It’s hard to find a celebrity nowadays who hasn’t done something,” says Betteridge. Adds Youn, “It’s not just olive oil that they’re putting on their skin making them look like they’re 30 when they’re in their mid-50s.”
The most successful videos about cosmetic procedures are often a mix of entertainment and education, with a dash of celebrity intrigue. Molly Bailey, a St. Louis-based injector with 10,800 followers on her @BaileysBotox TikTok account and 74,000 on her Instagram, recently used photos of Anne Hathaway to discuss how to make Botox look natural. “I suspect Anne has dabbled in Botox with her glassy skin and lack of expression lines, but she does it in a way that’s nearly invisible, and, as an injector, I personally think that’s the best way,” she says in the post before launching into a tutorial about balancing Botox doses to reduce wrinkles without inhibiting facial movement.
Bailey says one 30-second post can require hours of research, including combing through photos of public figures to analyze how their faces have changed over time. And not all her videos advocate for surgical intervention. In one post, she examines photos of Margot Robbie through the years to show how people naturally lose fat in their faces as they age.
She admits that her videos can be polarizing. “I get probably more negative comments than positive when I put those videos out,” she says. “It’s misconstrued that I’m picking on them.”
When stars do discuss the work they’ve had done — like Megan Fox, who told Call Her Daddy that she had a rhinoplasty and boob job early in her career but swore she’s “never had a face-lift of any kind” — the response is often a mix of praise and criticism. Few celebrities are happy to be put under the microscope, as Kylie Jenner’s recent breakdown on The Kardashians — where she cried about the “nasty things” people have said about her plumped lips, full breasts and other possible enhancements — made clear. Bailey once received a DM from an early-2000s reality star who asked her to take a post down. She acquiesced, even though she was under no obligation to do so. “I’m not trying to be mean or make someone feel called out,” she says.
There is, however, a general consensus among the doctors and injectors active on social media that public figures should be more open about the treatments they’re receiving. “I can sympathize with celebrities that are trying to keep the work that they had done private,” says Barrett, who’s cut back on his star-centric videos in recent months. “At the same time, I feel like they owe it to be a little more honest about things that they might’ve had done.” (Reps for stars discussed in this article had no comment or did not respond to a request for comment.)
Still, being a plastic surgery TikToker can sometimes get awkward IRL. After Barrett posted a video in 2020 suggesting that Hailey Bieber has had work done, E! News reported that a lawyer for the model turned beauty entrepreneur sent Barrett a cease-and-desist order accusing him of “flagrant and conscious infringements” of Bieber’s rights.” No problem — until Barrett spotted Bieber at his local farmers market. “She could’ve come up and slapped me if she wanted to,” he says with a laugh. “I wasn’t wearing scrubs or anything, so she probably didn’t recognize me. I’m hoping not.”
A version of this story first appeared in the August 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
