“Republicans really need to elevate and highlight more women in our party who have NOT had bizarre or botched plastic surgery that is both distracting and made a mockery all over the internet,” declared Meghan McCain on X yesterday. (Susan Dell and Callista Gingrich could not be reached for comment, and Barbera Thornhill declined to comment.)
But what if the surgery isn’t botched at all?
“It’s very fun, particularly when you’re on one political side or another, to aim your criticism weapon at them and say, ‘Oh, look how bad their plastic surgery is,’” says Dr. Terry Dubrow, the plastic surgeon and TV personality known for his roles on reality shows like The Swan and Botched. “But it isn’t bad. From a technical point of view, it’s extraordinarily successful…. The plastic surgery is super well executed.”
According to Dubrow, a California fixture with a private practice in Beverly Hills and whose wife, Heather Dubrow, is a cast member on the Real Housewives of Orange County, this kind of conspicuous aesthetic is the ultimate status symbol in certain “East Coast” circles.
“I’m so successful. Everyone around me is successful. We do things to the extreme. We’re excessively rich. We’re excessively powerful,” he says, mimicking the mentality of the clients who request this look. “If I’m going to have a facelift, I don’t want any laxity. If I’m going to have a brow lift, I want to have a brow lift; I want it up. [If] I’m going to have [an] upper-eye lift, take all the skin.”
“Hollywood,” he says, “is more of a preservation and a refinement, a relaxed kind of improvement, a refreshing kind of vibe.” (Admittedly, it’s difficult to comprehend a world in which the plastic surgery trends of Los Angeles, where Runyon Canyon is overrun with hiking girls sporting bolt-on fake boobs, BBLs, swollen lips, and matching Alo sets, are considered more natural and toned down compared to those of Washington, DC.)
When I call Melinda Anna Farina, a facelift consultant to the one percent who’s better known as the Beauty Broker, to ask about the internet’s latest fixation, she is less than enthusiastic. In fact, she hates the premise of my story.
“I see people [who] look like idiots in every single political party,” she says. “There’s bad plastic surgery in every political spectrum.” Farina, who insists she is apolitical (telling me she doesn’t even vote and only knows Eric Trump because he helped her nephew get into the right hospital and see the right doctor during a major health crisis), has little patience for turning cosmetic procedures into a partisan blood sport. “That’s dumb. It’s dumb and it’s a stupid article. So I would say, trash the article if that’s what you guys are talking about, because it’s stupid.”
