Celebrity Lip Cosmetic Changes That Went Way Too Far

In the world of entertainment — and the larger realm of celebrity — much of the discourse surrounding the stars that fans obsess over is centered on how they look. Whether it's a flawlessly executed glow-up or cosmetic enhancement gone awry, those who concern themselves with the lives of the rich and famous are endlessly fascinated with the good, the bad, and the ugly of image and physical appearance, and the pendulum swings wildly in both directions. Fashion designer Donatella Versace exemplifies the phenomenon better than most. For years, fans, pundits, and even doctors speculated on what she may or may not have done to her face: breaking down her potential use of lip fillers, cheek fillers, and procedures, including neck and face lifts. Fast-forward to now, and she is receiving praise — and a bit of scorn, too — for seemingly rolling back the dial on her rumored plastic surgery.

Such is the case any time a celebrity debuts a big change in their appearance, and, in recent years, lips have been a particular focus of the tabloid crowd. From the Kardashian-Jenner sisters to the top stars of stage, screen, and song, lip fullness is being carefully measured, analyzed, and evaluated by critics and admirers with every new Instagram post or publicity photo. As with Versace, the reaction to perceived changes is loud, and it can be brutal, too, if the change doesn't go over well with the masses. To that end, here's a round-up of celebrity lip cosmetic changes that went too far in the eyes of observers.

While we're left to speculate on whether most celebrities have gone under the knife to alter their faces and what procedures they may have had, "Friends" star Courteney Cox has been open and honest about getting caught up in a whirlwind of cosmetic enhancements. And after taking in the negative response to her changing appearance and coming to some realizations about what's important and how she wants to be perceived by others, she got to work reversing much of what had been done. "You don't realize that you look a little off, so then you keep doing more because you look normal to yourself," Cox explained on the "Gloss Angeles" podcast, via Today. "And you look in the mirror and go, 'Oh, that looks good.' You don't realize what it looks like to the outside person." She went on to say that fretting about aging and her appearance had been a waste of time. "Luckily, I was able to reverse most of that, and now I'm actually just older."

Experts previously noted that she had likely used dermal fillers in her cheeks and lips, and the response to that work was unkind to say the least. Even now, Cox — who looks nearly unrecognizable sans make-up — continues to take the hits, with one X user recently writing, "I just saw Courteney Cox in an ad....and her lips are all jacked up," and another adding, "I wouldn't trust Courteney Cox with anything. You seen her lips? Bad decision."

Over the years, Khloé Kardashian has taken pains to be healthier and to improve her physical appearance. However, some fans and commenters believe she may have gone too far down the road of cosmetic enhancement to achieve her current look, particularly with her lips. "So no one from Khloé's team cared to tell her that she has botched lips before she started shooting an ad?" asked one X user in response to her appearance in an attached picture, a comment that does well to capture some of the discussion around her changing lips. More recently, she was slammed on Instagram for showing off what some considered to be "duck lips."

In 2025, London-based doctor Jonny Betteridge broke down Kardashian's changing appearance via Instagram, listing "lip filler to enhance volume and shape" among the myriad procedures and treatments Kardashian may have undergone to change her face and body. For her part, though, Kardashian took the commentary in stride, responding to the post and even confirming some of Betteridge's medical opinions as fact. "I take this as a great compliment!" Kardashian said of the breakdown, writing of her lips/face, "filler in the past but not any over the last few years (I hear it never goes away, so I'm sure it's still there but calmed down)."

Continuing with the Kardashian-Jenner theme, the baby of the family, model and fashion mogul Kylie Jenner, has undergone the same kind of physical evolution as her older sisters in some respects, showing off new looks at regular intervals over the years. Unfortunately, this has led to negative commentary on her appearance dating back to her teen years. Way back in 2014, BuzzFeed and other outlets published features chronicling the change in her lips through her Instagram selfies. At the time, commentary on her ever-expanding lip plumpness was commonplace, with X comments like, "Kylie Jenner's lips are getting out of control!" and "they just keep getting bigger and bigger and it's giving me anxiety," making the rounds. 

Now, years later, Jenner continues to receive criticism for her lips. However, she has responded by following the example of Courteney Cox and others by removing some of her fillers. When a fan commented on a 2025 Instagram post with the opinion that she was looking more like her natural self these days, Jenner responded in the comments that it was because "I got rid of all my filler," via PopSugar. She'll probably never please some of the pop culture pundits, but Jenner is clearly out there living her best life regardless.

Once upon a time, Meg Ryan was Hollywood's ultimate girl next door. With natural beauty and an innate, quirky charisma, she charmed audiences in late '80s, '90s, and early 2000s rom-coms like "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," "You've Got Mail," and "Kate & Leopold." As with just about every A-list actress, though, Ryan aged out of the roles that made her a household name and a safe box office bet for movie studios. And, like many in her position, Ryan seemingly responded by trying to preserve the look that initially brought her that incredible success as her career tapered off. 

Speaking with HollywoodLife in 2016, plastic surgeon Mark Youssef opined that Ryan probably had undergone a number of procedures, including lip enhancements. "The tip [of her nose] looks more pinched, so it's very possible that she had some sort of rhinoplasty. There's definitely volume in her lips as well, and Botox on her forehead. She's had too much Botox in the forehead, and as a result, the eyes look smaller because it drops the position of the eyebrow," Youssef said, in addition to commenting on her cheeks. She's still catching fire today, too, with one X user commenting, "She went from America's Sweetheart to a doll you could wet her lips and stick her to a window."

For children of the '80s and '90s, Lisa Rinna may be the original queen bee of the pouty lip posse. Long before she turned heads as a cast member on the Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," she was already making waves with big roles on Aaron Spelling's "Melrose Place" and the NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives." According to Rinna herself, her trademark lips were originally the result of collagen injections inspired by Barbara Hershey's appearance in the 1988 tear-jerker "Beaches." "Barbara Hershey put collagen in her top lip, we thought it was the coolest thing ever," Rinna said during a 2025 episode of her podcast "Let's Not Talk About the Husband" with her longtime partner, Harry Hamlin, via Entertainment Now.

While some have lauded her for her instantly identifiable lip looks, the continuing metamorphosis has more than its share of critics. One X user launched the particularly cruel barb, "Lisa Rinna's lips look like a baboon's anus," in a 2025 post. For her part, Rinna has expressed a level of regret about her lips over the years, telling People in 2010, "I was crazy to even touch them in the first place."

Up next is another "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alum in Taylor Armstrong, who has achieved a level of internet fame that arguably puts her in a category all her own among the women who have been a part of the long-running reality series. A scene from the Season 2 episode of "RHOBH," titled "Malibu Beach Party From Hell," was the inspiration for the "Woman Yelling at a Cat" meme, which emerged on social media in 2019 when users combined an image of Armstrong yelling from the episode with that of a cat with a confused expression sitting at a dinner table. As widespread as the meme is, Armstrong may be generating chatter in equal measure for her changing lips and face over the years.

In 2020, Armstrong let it be known that she was as critical of her decision to blow out her lips as any of the people trolling her online. "I just want to set the record straight," Armstrong said in a Bravo Insider clip, "They are implants. It was a mistake in my 20s, and they are here to stay." Despite her own issues with her lips, she continues to get called out over them, with one X user joking, "Is it just me or is duck lips Taylor Armstrong starting to morph into CARSON KRESSLEY?"

Farrah Abraham has been a magnet for criticism dating back to the earliest days of her celebrity status. After all, she first came into the public consciousness via her involvement with the MTV reality series "16 and Pregnant," which documented the lives of teens on the verge of welcoming children into the world while still coming of age and navigating things like school and friends themselves. By its very nature, the show invited scorn for Abraham and its other subjects, and the criticism has never really ceased for the Council Bluffs, Iowa native, who went on to star in the series "Teen Mom." However, her physical evolution — specifically that of her expanding pout — made the badgering all the worse.

In 2015, Abraham made headlines with what can be conservatively described as one of the biggest celebrity lip job botches of all time. And while doctors were able to mitigate some of that damage, subsequent procedures have altered her look so substantially that one plastic surgeon told the U.S. Sun that she may have forgotten what her face originally looked like. "I always show people their old photos before deciding on a plan — this could help prevent Farrah from going back for more filler," the doctor said.

Long before she became the second Mrs. Jeff Bezos and one-half of one of the wealthiest couples in the history of the world, Lauren Sánchez made waves of her own as an award-winning journalist with movie star looks. Along the way, her voluptuous lips were a key component of the overall package. Over the years, though, Sánchez's appearance has changed in ways that seemingly go beyond simple aging. In 2023, celebrity doctor Dr. Ramtin Kassir told Page Six that Sánchez's lips looked "a little too full" and speculated that she may have gotten silicon, pushing the middle part of her lip higher and weighing it down at the sides. Meanwhile, fans think Sánchez's cosmetic work has gone too far, with one X user writing, "Lauren Sanchez was beautiful naturally before the crazy lips situation. I do not comprehend why women get these crazy surgeries."

Given the fact that she and Bezos recently exchanged their vows after a years-long romance, the discourse around her lips and overall appearance has been amplified. "She's like a trout out of water," wrote one Instagram commenter in response to a picture from the pair's European honeymoon. "Class is a skill, not an injection."

For fans of "The Boys" and her character, Starlight, the situation surrounding Erin Moriarty's changing face and lips has been particularly perplexing. Although nothing has been confirmed, plastic surgeon/YouTuber Dr. Gary Linkov opined in a 2022 video that Moriarty appeared to have had lip filler added to her plush pout, along with a handful of other minor procedures. Minor, nonexistent, or otherwise, whatever processes caused the perceived change in her look have thrown fans of her show and casual observers for a loop. "Whoever introduced Erin Moriarty, aka Starlight, to lip fillers and bad plastic surgery....COUNT YOUR DAYS!" wrote one fan, via X.

It hasn't just been online trolls who have commented on Moriarty's lips and overall appearance, though. After Megyn Kelly said Moriarty had "the Kim Kardashian lips," via Page Six, and alleged that she had had work done, Moriarty decided she was over the commentary and ditched her Instagram altogether, saying in a farewell post, "Social media is not something that came naturally to me, and that was an investment of energy to connect with you guys. And I am horrified by the reaction, the reductive assumptions, and the aforementioned video [of Kelly's comments] that is a primary example of such harassment. It's broken my heart ... You've lost the privilege of this account."

There's no doubting Madonna's status as a pop music icon and one of the ultimate sex symbols of the 1980s and '90s. In an era where MTV rose to astronomical heights and video quite literally killed the radio star, she stood apart with her vocal stylings and the risqué videos that often accompanied them. She had longevity, too, thrilling fans for a couple of decades after the high-water mark of her career. Along the way, though, she was expected to keep pace with performers half her age in order to maintain her grip on the spotlight, which may have resulted in her looking to doctors in order to keep her face looking as fresh as possible. Speculation about her appearance, including that of her lips, has been running rampant for years now.

Per the U.S. Sun, a nurse at a plastic surgery firm opined that Madonna may have had work done to prepare her lips for an on-stage recreation of her infamous 2003 VMAs kiss with Britney Spears during a 2024 show in Rio de Janeiro. "The injector may have gone in to counteract any asymmetries with the filler," she said. "That could have been done on the tour, and it is a quick procedure." In any case, the legendary singer clearly doesn't have time for her critics, blaming "ageism and misogyny" for the commentary around her looks in a not-so-subtle message to her critics posted via Instagram in 2023.

Model, reality TV star, actress, and rapper Blac Chyna has fully embedded herself into the pop culture zeitgeist over the last decade-plus, exploding into the public consciousness after Drake name-dropped her in his 2010 hit "Miss Me." Since then, she has graced magazine covers, dabbled in the Kardashian-Jenner world via her former relationship with Rob Kardashian and her lawsuit against the family, released music, started a cosmetics line, and made a bag on OnlyFans. All the while, her appearance has been a point of discussion for admirers and casual observers alike. She drew criticism when her already identifiable lips started to expand, with one X user writing in 2020, "What happened to Blac Chyna's lips and cheeks? She was so pretty. No need to be changing her face."

Like some of the other people on this list, those sorts of messages were seemingly received by Blac Chyna, who rolled back some of her cosmetic work more recently. "I removed all my face fillers, I'm so happy," she wrote in a 2023 Instagram post, which included a video of her throughout the process. Just a few days later, she made a second post, pointing out additional areas where filler would be dissolved, including her upper lip. In that video, she explained that she got the fillers because everyone else was doing it, and pleaded with her fans to avoid going down that road themselves.

For her part, "Love Me Like You Do" singer Ellie Goulding has denied receiving lip treatments, telling Heat (via Digital Spy) in 2016, "I hadn't done anything to them," and, "Any of my friends will tell you, I don't like needles — it's impossible for me to have done anything like that." However, a spokesperson for a U.K.-based cosmetic surgery practice quibbled with those claims in 2019, via the Mirror, saying, "I would suggest that Ellie started to have non-surgical lip fillers a few years ago to create a fuller yet natural lip shape when smiling. However, recent images suggest she has since had multiple treatments to plump her lips, creating a more unnatural look, where the cupid's bow of the upper lip disappears." In any case, her changing lips have been the subject of fan gossip for years.

"I hate whatever Ellie Goulding did to her lips," wrote one X user recently. "I mean ladies should do whatever they want with their bodies, but it's such a shame..." Goulding hasn't let the critics get her down, though, emerging from a long musical hiatus to release new material, including contributing a previously unreleased track to the anime "Clevatess," and making headlines with her new romance with actor Beau Minniear.