Anna Nicole Smith Was Nearly Unrecognizable Without Makeup
Anna Nicole Smith's signature bright red lips and smoky eyes became a hallmark of her prime days as a Playboy and Guess model in the '90s. Without it, she looks nearly unrecognizable. Compiled in the TikTok video below, rare images of her before her modeling days show just how different she looked without a full face on. Smith, who was born Vickie Lynn Hogan, still looked beautiful. In fact, the makeup-free look gave her an innocent appearance that betrays the bombshell image she went to cultivate.
The images of her early days offer a glimpse into a different facet of Smith's tragic real-life story, one that shows a natural beauty with a heavy past about to shoot to fame — and infamy. But even though Smith rarely went out without makeup, it was her clean face that opened her first doors into the modeling world. "She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen without makeup. Sharon Stone is a close second," Marilyn Grabowski, who was the Playboy magazine photography editor when Smith attended the open call for models that would transform her life told BuzzFeed News in 2017.
@annanicolesmithbeauty Anna Nicole Smith Without Makeup 🧖♀️🤍✨ #annanicolesmith #nomakeup #fyp
TikTok users loved seeing the bare-faced Smith revealed in the video. "Natural beauty for sure. A gorgeous woman," one commenter gushed. Others agreed. "She was always beautiful and naturally beautiful too," a second netizen wrote. Her natural beauty rose her from poverty, and she went through great lengths to leave her old self behind.
Anna Nicole Smith changed her looks in myriad ways
Years after Anna Nicole Smith's disturbing death from an accidental overdose of prescription meds, the public is still raving about her beauty. Social media users often rank her alongside the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Claudia Schiffer on Reddit discussions, highlighting her uniqueness. "Anna's Guess ads were way more memorable [than Schiffer's]. She had a vivacity and sunniness that poured through those photos," one netizen argued. But the truth is that Smith changed her looks almost entirely.
For starers, the blond bombshell wasn't really blond. As the picture above shows, she was a natural brunette. She was also flat-chested, a physical attribute she knew was an obstacle to achieving her goals of becoming a model and leaving Texas and her complicated past behind. So she underwent breast-augmentation surgery, a decision she credited for the life she would eventually have. "My whole life revolves around my breasts," she was quoted as saying (via The Guardian). "Everything I have is because of them."
Unfortunately, they also caused her an array of problems. She suffered complications from the surgery that left her in chronic pain. To manage it, she relied on painkillers that she would become addicted to. "She had a lot of different kinds of pain — back pain. I don't think anybody really knew, but hours before she'd go on a red carpet, she was filling herself up with painkillers," Ursula Macfarlane, director of "Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me," told Vanity Fair. Beauty opened many doors for Smith, but it is also cost her everything.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).