5 minutes read
Rosie O'Donnell admits she felt 'shame' over getting secret facelift after losing 50lbs
Kim N.
Rosie O'Donnell has opened up about her secret lower deep plane facelift and the shame she felt around it after previously vowing never to have the cosmetic procedure.
The comedian, 64, opened up about the choice in a poem titled 'Decisions', which she posted to her Substack, revealing she'd gone under the knife in January after finding her skin changed after losing 50lbs.
Despite previously being staunchly against cosmetic surgery, Rosie admitted she found her mind changing when she began to notice the effects of "gravity" on her face.
She wrote: "I used to feel very strongly about facelifts. Not casually - morally. I had assigned myself as head of all women who would never - ever."
Rosie added: "I thought it was a betrayal. Of feminism. Of aging. Of our team of women worldwide. And then I lost 50 pounds…
"It wasn’t wrinkles - it was gravity. I’d look in the mirror and think, this isn’t aging, this is melting with intention."
She revealed that she tried to look at it as being "earned" aging, but admitted she thought: "'umm how earned does it have to look?'"
The comic had to confront the decision after her 13-year-old child Clay discovered that she was looking into getting the procedure, revealing that Clay told her: "'You earned your wrinkles.' Which - first of all - rude. But also… correct."
She added: "Then Clay said, 'Young women look up to you,' and finally - with strong effect - 'I wouldn’t be able to respect you if you did it.' And that one… landed.
"That’s a big statement from someone who still needs you to open jars. And what was wild is - she sounded exactly like me. Like my younger, more certain, more morally rigid self had somehow moved into my house and was now judging my face."
She admitted the exchange "really threw" her, and led her to delay the surgery for "months" while she mulled it over.
Rosie recalled: "And then I had this quiet realization: if I’m teaching Clay anything, it can’t be that my body belongs to an idea either. Even a good idea. Even feminism.
"Because that’s still not freedom - that’s just a different authority telling you what you’re allowed to do with your own face."
She added: "I want them to grow up in a world where they don't feel like they have to change but also knows they can, if they want to, without losing moral standing in their own life."
Rosie revealed that she underwent the surgery in January with a doctor who'd operated on friends of hers "who all still looked like themselves, just like they had recently been told good news."
She says that before undergoing anesthetic, she told the doctor that she would never complain that he should have "done more" during the surgery as she just wanted a small tweak rather than a dramatic overhaul of her face.
She explained: "I wanted a limit. I wanted to still be me, just… less haunted. And I do look like me - A slightly more well-rested emotionally stable version of me."
Rosie then admitted the outcome was indeed very subtle, explaining: "And here’s the thing - no one has noticed. Not one person. Not a friend, not a stranger, not even people who owe me compliments.
"My teen daughter, has not said a word. Nothing. I went through a full existential feminist crisis, had my face and neck surgically altered, and the result is… zippo .Which honestly is the best possible outcome."
She revealed that having the surgery did not make her "disappear" or "become someone else", but it helped her "stop arguing with the mirror".
Rosie acknowledged that she doesn't "owe anyone an explanation" for deciding to get the lower deep plane facelift, but it reminded her of the struggle of having a "sense of deceit", which has happened in different situations in the past.
She recalled telling the executives at Warner Brothers that she was a gay woman before starting her show so that they knew all the facts before investing money into her, in a time before Ellen DeGeneres was out and there were no sitcoms about openly gay characters.
Rosie admitted: "I have never liked secrets and part of my desire to show myself is to come clean. But who do I owe that truth to? Is it mine to keep?
"As I move on in my 60s with a rejuvenated lower face as if it happened naturally. It didn’t. It cost more money than I have ever paid for a car - my privileged place in this world, and that feels almost shameful to me."