Matt Gaetz's 'Mar-A-Lago Face' Looks Melted Away In Jarring DC Appearance
Matt Gaetz once had one of the worst cases of Mar-a-Lago face that the world had ever seen. However, the former Florida representative's eyebrow-raising makeover appears to have all but disappeared, along with the final semblances of his political career. In December 2025, he sadly put on a jacket that said "Representative Matt Gaetz" only to attend a briefing held by Kingsley Wilson, the Department of Defense Press Secretary, as a journalist. However, it was difficult to pay attention to anything Gaetz said because his transformed face stole the show.
Gone were the supposed fillers that made his cheeks noticeably fuller. Even more shockingly, the disgraced congressman seems to have eased up on his reported Botox use because the wrinkles on his forehead have made a comeback. Even his hair has seemingly lost its bird-like flair and lay flatly. Gaetz also appears to have lost touch with his Mar-a-Lago makeup artist because his face wasn't covered with an unhealthy amount of bronzer, and was actually rather pale.
To be fair, the controversial politician was in a harshly-lit room, which may have made him appear more wan. Of course, the past has already shown us that unfiltered photos of Matt Gaetz don't do his face fillers any favors, so this may have been another side of that. Or maybe, the GOP political star who went overboard with the cosmetic procedures did indeed change up his look a bit to kickstart a new era in his professional life, as a reporter for One America News Network.
A plastic surgeon once explained how Matt Gaetz achieved his Mar-a-Lago face
While exclusively speaking to our sister site The List, in December 2024, a cosmetic expert broke down Matt Gaetz's shocking transformation. After comparing photos of the former congressman from the 2020 and 2024 Republican National Conventions, Dr. Mariano Busso, a board certified cosmetic dermatologist based out of Beverly Hills and Miami, who did not personally work on Gaetz, professed that heavy Botox use and cheek fillers were likely to blame for his drastic face transformation. In fact, the expert believed that the disgraced politician's most noticeable feature, his eyebrows, could also be chalked up to botched Botox.
"Botox was performed very heavily on the center of the forehead, resulting in a drop of his central eyebrows," Dr. Busso pointed out. "The lateral aspect of the eyebrows was left with movement, giving that Mr. Spock' look with pointy lateral eyebrows." While Gaetz may have decided to give the Botox and face fillers a bit of a rest more recently, it doesn't seem like he's completely ready to let go of his Mar-a-Lago look altogether. In a video shared to One America News Network's account on X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly after his D.C. appearance, he looked a little bit more like the man we have become accustomed to seeing.
This was predominantly thanks to the warm lighting, heavy bronzer, and gelled hair. So, there is a strong chance that Gaetz looked pale in the press briefing room because he skipped out on going to hair and makeup during his big day Washington. Ultimately, only time will tell how long he will be able to resist the pull of Mar-a-Lago facial procedures.