Jarring Photos Of Matt Gaetz That Make Us Miss His Pre-Plastic Surgery Face

It's no secret that Matt Gaetz has had one of the worst cases of Mar-a-Lago face. However, that hasn't exactly stopped us from channeling our inner Kevin Hart every time we see pre-surgery pics of the disgraced would-be attorney general. Say it with us, now: Damn! 

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Gaetz has always had heavy brows, and pre-surgery pics show that they were pretty arched even before he had his MAGA-over. However, there's also no question that the height of those arches wasn't quite so intense. Au contraire, they must have changed dramatically when ... well, when Gaetz changed dramatically. Perhaps he'd heard the adage "The higher the hair, the closer to God" and figured the same applied to brows? And his eyebrows may be his most striking feature, but he overhauled his whole look during his years in the political spotlight. Either way, pre-cosmetic work, a younger Gaetz looked distinctly more realistic. 

Think you scrolled too far and ended up in an entirely different article about someone who is most definitely not Matt Gaetz? Think again. 

When Gaetz was pictured at Fordham Law School in January 2018, he looked like a different person in comparison with the shockingly transformed Gaetz of the 2020s. Again, the brows weren't sky-high and Spock-inspired, but his skin looked way less plasticky as well. Also less plasticky? His hair, which looked like actual hair, and wasn't lacquered into place with what might be gel, but could plausibly pass for Gorilla Glue, too. 

Yup, you're still looking at Matt Gaetz (use the lacquered hair as evidence). 

In February 2018, Gaetz was once again sporting dark circles under his eyes, and overall, he looked fairly normal. His eyebrows were in their natural position, and notably, he didn't even seem to have brushed them into place, let alone run some brow gel through them. Granted, there were some early signs of his MAGAtastic (read: ridiculous-looking) transformation to come — orange bronzer, we're looking at you — but even that was more toned-down to what we'd see in the from mid-2019 and onwards. 

Fast-forward to the spring of 2018, Matt Gaetz still hadn't gone under the needle yet (and he skipped the hair gel again). 

One of the biggest tells that Gaetz hadn't yet started on his cosmetic work and extensive fillers was his rounded jaw. There was also a ton of movement in his forehead area, which made for a much-less-unsettling lewk than the frozen face he would later sport. 

Emphasis on facial movement, because when Matt Gaetz was pictured at a rally in September 2018, he was the picture of animated expressions. In addition to the expression lines on his brow, Gaetz also had some softer smile lines around his eyes. They weren't standing out like a sore thumb though, so one wonders why he felt compelled to nuke them later on. 

JK, we all know he wanted easier access to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. 

By early 2019, Matt Gaetz's jawline had already started looking slightly more chiseled. That could have been as a result of better angles, weight loss, or even subtle fillers. Either way, though, he still looked like a human rather than a wax sculpture. 

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and in the months that followed he would go from possibly-slightly-enhanced to very evidently done-up ... and by the time he arrived at the 2024 Republican National Convention, he famously looked more tuned-up than a car. 

Of course, late 2024 didn't pan out too well for Matt Gaetz, and he lost out on the US Attorney General position to Pam Bondi when the past sexual misconduct allegations against him became a major talking point during his confirmation hearings. He also resigned from Congress, and took up an anchoring job at One America News Network. 

Perhaps because of his rapid descent (or maybe because his new gig made pricey face filler a no-go), Gaetz seems to have ditched the Mar-a-Lago look. Case in point: he attended a Pentagon press briefing in December 2025 with his facial movement seemingly fully restored. 

The price of coming back down to earth is that gravity takes hold ... but TBH, at least Gaetz looks less like a cartoon now.