Just two months ago, Simone Biles answered fan questions about her boob job and opened up about getting a lower blepharoplasty. Before that, Kylie Jenner revealed the exact recipe for her own implants while details of her mother Kris’s facelift had everyone praising her surgeon, Dr. Steven Levine. Jennifer Lawrence spilled not long ago that she’s looking forward to having a facelift done in the future herself. It seems that we’re in an age of radical honesty when it comes to celebrity beauty treatments—but only among women. Sure, a solid handful of famous men have gone the route of aesthetic transparency, but A-listers like Bradley Cooper aren’t rising to meet the moment just yet.
After months of speculation surrounding what internet commenters have called his “new face,” rumors about the actor’s appearance have finally been addressed—though not by Cooper himself. During his January 5 appearance on SmartLess, a podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes, Arnett said he’s been asked multiple times during the press tour for Is This Thing On? to name something people don’t know about Cooper (the director and one of his costars in the film). But instead of sharing a random fact about his favorite food or what he likes to do off-set, Arnett decided to address the plastic surgery gossip on Cooper’s behalf: “We keep reading [that] everybody thinks that Bradley’s had plastic surgery… What people don’t know is that he hasn’t,” he said.
While Cooper laughed along and said that strangers have been approaching him to say he “looks good” lately, he didn’t explicitly address the plastic surgery speculation. Still, Arnett replied that the “bullshit” rumors made him mad. “People say that all the time, and it’s a hilarious thing,” he said. “Everybody thinks that they know.”
I mean, he’s right. Plenty of surgeons and random civilians on social media have speculated that Cooper might have received an upper blepharoplasty, a lower face and neck lift, hair transplants, and laser treatments, too. To Arnett’s point, rumors like these should be taken with a healthy dose of salt, and we can never know for sure exactly what a celebrity’s getting done without their or their doctors’ acknowledgement—but these rumors didn’t come out of nowhere. After appearing late last year with a noticeably brighter complexion and seemingly tighter skin around his eyes, it’s hard to accept a claim that he’s had zero work done when the masses can collectively tell that something has changed.
Although I’m of the mindset that celebrities do not owe us an exhaustive explanation of their aesthetic choices, Cooper coming clean about his treatments could open doors for even more men to open up about the pressures they face to stay young and hot. As it stands, the perception of male vanity still carries a number of very real (and often homophobic/misogynistic) taboos that, to be perfectly honest, we could do without. And, let’s be real—if women are expected to share every single detail of their aesthetic upkeep down to their cup size, it’d be nice if men could grant the masses the same honesty. At the very least, they could admit they love a good facial.
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