The truth about Looks Unrecognisable
It's usually botox.
In Word Count posts, I take a closer look at the media – analysing big interviews and favourite columns, or taking a popular feature as a writing prompt and placing my own spin on it. SEE PREVIOUS POSTS
We say it all the time – ‘I barely recognised you’ – in the face of a new haircut, either to mask our envy/delight (if they look great) or pity/delight (if they look like they’ve been dragged across Southampton Common by a monster truck). But, usually, we can tell who someone is.
Looks Unrecognisable is a popular category of content because it’s a) click baiting, b) easy to assemble, c) cheap, d) mildly entertaining to all intellectual levels, and e) passively nasty. All a knackered online editor needs is two or three pics, some open browser tabs – Wikipedia, YouTube, Instagram – and anyone who’s appeared on TV in the last 40 years. In print media, it was known as ‘Where are they now?’ and tended to focus on former child stars with heroin addictions, but the limitless scroll of the internet demands more than eyeballs on a once-cute face.
There are occasions when a famous person really does look unrecognisable. Renée Zellweger caused a sensation when she did ‘something’ different but nobody was sure what – either different eye makeup or a facelift, depending on how Amanda Platell you’re feeling that day. Jennifer Grey – corner-avoiding Baby from Dirty Dancing – changing her nose. Mickey Rourke doing… whatever he’s done to himself. But usually, these supposed metamorphoses are surprising only to people with amnesia.
Looks Unrecognisable posts lurk in the sidebars of shame and degradation that litter the internet. Ever since that one off Harry Potter got a gym membership and became a viable sex object to the kind of person who calls their favourite beanie ‘the sorting hat’, not a single change of size or circumstances has gone unreported. There are at least six different genres of LU:
– Passage of time v1 (derogatory)
– Passage of time v2 (all grown up, vaguely pervy)
– Surgery (botched or rejuvenating)
– Disguise (because they’re sick of being in Looks Unrecognisable stories)
– No makeup (derogatory or congratulatory)
– Already unrecognisable because they are/were absolutely nobody
I opened up the News tab on my laptop and searched for recent Looks Unrecognisable content to assess the veracity of its claims. Why? What else am I gonna do? Talk about the elections? Then I’d Look Unrecognisable.
First up, the Mirror:
Brushing aside that this piece was written either by AI or several goldfish playing a game of Consequences, you wait SEVEN PARAGRAPHS to discover what group this lady was in. And you remain none the wiser.
A header image would’ve helped, but when I viewed the story, this was replaced by a video of a weather presenter wearing the last formal shirt hanging in the Basingstoke Zara (which closed in 2020).
They say: ‘Natalie, now 41, looks worlds apart from her younger self when she was a member of pop girl group Tymes 4.’ [Who?]
Truly unrecognisable? Yes, unless you’re a relative. Nobody knew who this lady was in the first place. And I mean that in a caring way. I’ve drunk cans of Fanta with more of a public profile.
The Sun, there, vagueposting us to death. Is it Taja Sevelle? The lead singer of They Might Be Giants? We do find out in paragraph five, but here’s a screenshot the paper ripped off from someone who still posts on Twitter. (They walk among us.)
The headline is misleading, as it turns out – GASP! – this is Tiffany, who was sixteen when debut hit I Think We’re Alone Now was a smash in 1988 (in the UK and Ireland at least), so it’s actually THIRTY-EIGHT years ago, not 29. Hahahaha, what? I feel unwell.
They say: ‘Taking to X, one fan wrote: “Wow she doesn’t look the same at all!”’
Truly unrecognisable? She’s almost 40 years older, no longer a teenager, has a different body shape and… the video of her performance seems to have been filmed on a pencil sharpener. What do you expect?
Metro now, former home of cartoon strip Nemi and that column where horny commuters would send love notes to people they eye-f–cked on the Tube that morning.
Bobby Norris was (is?) a reality TV star, best known to me (in images I would happily become amnesiac to scrub away) for wearing a thong swimming costume that just about covered his bollocks. Now, he’s had some work done:
There is actually a sad story behind this sensationalist take. Cooped up during lockdown, Bobby watched old footage of himself on The Only Way is Essex and hated his various ‘tweakments’ over the years. He also got time to read the array of hateful comments about him from that circle the plughole of the internet.
A series of fillers and other treatments to a degree that doctors warned they could kill him. Once the fillers were zapped away, Bobby had what he calls a ‘corrective’ face and neck lift and appeared on This Morning still swollen from the procedure.
My somewhat tepid take on this is that fillers should be banned and anyone pumping them into people unnecessarily should be jailed.
They say: ‘He looks unrecognisable,’ sim_j_gondalia reflected. [Thank goodness Sim J Gondola has spoken out!]
Truly unrecognisable? Trolling and insecurity over his looks have forced a damaged young man into repeated, harmful procedures. Not sure it warrants a crowing roundup of internet reactions tbh! (Irony is not lost on me fyi.)
The Daily Record is clearly not a fan of edging – we get the celebrity in the header photo and his name in the second paragraph. This genre needs a bit of foreplay, guys. Fresh from being bumped off after a year as a domestic abuser in Coronation Street, James Cartwright’s past was revealed: he had appeared in the greatest children’s TV show of all time, Tracy Beaker, and looked like this:
They say: Another person wrote: “Only just realised that the actor James Cartwright who plays Theo in Coronation Street was Nathan In Tracey Beaker. Blew my mind.”
Truly unrecognisable? Well, yes, he was a frosted-tips twink but now the passage of time and hairdressing trends have had their way with him.
Margot Robbie looks unrecognisable in viral throwback from her 13th birthday - as fans marvel over her transformation from bespectacled Harry Potter fan to A-list superstar
The Mail, succinct as ever. It’s paywalled, hilariously, but I can exclusively reveal that 13-year-old Margot Robbie Looks Unrecognisable to modern-day fans because… she was a child, and is now 35. Duh.
THIS is the stuff. Thank you, The Handbook! I clicked so fast on this, only to check whether the publication had confused Margot Robbie with one of the several famous women who look almost exactly like her, including Jamie Pressly from My Name is Earl and Samara Weaving from Home and Away and Being Hugo Weaving’s Niece.
Ms Robbie has undergone the ultimate transformation, more drastic than rhinoplasty, a deep plane facelift, and being mummified: a shaggy bob!!! Let’s have a look:
Right.
They say: While some fans grieved Margot’s longer hair, the general consensus is that the chop was the ultimate power move.
Truly unrecognisable? If you were clicking on the story expecting to see Margo Leadbetter from The Good Life, yes. The hair is nice but she looks exactly the fucking same, and ‘grieving’ a celebrity’s hairstyle should get you sectioned.
As I scrolled down the News tab, I came across this, from MSN, which is STILL GOING, incredibly:
And you know what, I’ll have to give them this one – I would not have recognised her from that thumbnail. I didn’t click through. Don’t want to encourage them.
Oh this could be anyone, couldn’t it? Pretty much everyone ever involved in The X Factor has bought a new face since appearing on the talentsploitation rotisserie. A bit like going into witness protection so Simon Cowell can’t find you and make you say something nice about Britain’s Got Talent.
Oh, it’s… I actually have no idea. The first paragraph says it’s a ‘former judge’ – of the show, I assume, not Judge Pickles. Anyway, it’s Brian Friedman, who used to teach hapless contestants their dance steps. Hang on… could Brian Friedman grow hair all this time?!
They say: The former judge on the telly talent show shared a video of himself undergoing the nasty-looking treatment, leaving fans stunned by his dramatically different appearance. (The piece ‘forgets’ to quote any ‘fan’ reactions, sadly.)
Truly unrecognisable? Yes, but because he has hair now, and it’s 20 years later, and he’s got numbing cream on his face that makes him look like that scene in ET when he’s dying.
A quickfire round to finish off with:
Sharon Stone, 67, looks unrecognisable as she shows off ageless beauty (Mirror)
Guys, she does look beautiful, yes, but she also had a stroke so… perhaps now is not the time to say she Looks Unrecognisable.
Jamie Lee Curtis looks unrecognisable after ditching her grey crop for the first time in decades (Good Housekeeping)
She’s got into wigs. Still recognisable.
ORIGINAL IT GIRL: 90s reality star, 56, looks unrecognisable as she makes rare public appearance shopping in London (The Sun Ireland)
Tamara Beckwith. Looks the same, just a little older.
FIT SHOW: ‘Scarier than any football game’ – Premier League icon looks unrecognisable as he competes in brand new sport aged 48 (The Sun)
NINE paragraphs before they tell you this was Sylvain Distin. He does CrossFit now. Face is the same. Recognisable unless your only point of reference when identifying someone is the number of veins on their forearms. Also: icon? Do words not mean anything anymore?
SPECS APPEAL: Katie Price looks almost unrecognisable as she shows off bold new look in huge specs (The Sun)
Let’s see, shall we?
Ah, yes, it’s the specs that make Katie Look Unrecognisable.
We close with Hello! magazine, the last bastion of good taste and titled gentry who look like gravy boats brought to life by a bored fairy. They bring news from Denmark’s royal family:
Queen Mary’s summer palace looks unrecognisable in ‘winter wonderland’ photos
In other words, it SNOWED, but even a building can’t escape accusations of getting a new face. I bet the Gråsten Palace has had some work done, though. Definite fillers on that dome.
The line about ET. Genius. Let’s not even begin on the descriptions of women’s bodies: ‘ X sets pulses racing’ (goes to corner shop in vest top at the height of summer); ‘Y puts on a leggy display’ (wears shorts, same summer) or ‘Z flaunts her curves…’ (bikini, beach, same old summer). God forbid women leave the house
I used to read a lot of Shakespeare, and a recurring theme is people becoming unrecognisable by changing their clothes or sometimes just their hat. The threshold can be absurdly low in Shakespeare. A cloak. A doublet and hose. A change of hairstyle. The convention is almost satirical: identity being so bound up with the surface signals people use to read each other that altering the signs even a tiny bit makes the person vanish. In Twelfth Night Viola puts on men’s clothes and becomes Cesario. Her own twin brother walks past her without noticing. The Taming of the Shrew is essentially an identity swap story: a master and servant trade clothes and identities, nobody realises. There’s a faint accusation in it too, that the people doing the looking weren’t really looking in the first place.