No – I don’t believe you! I won’t believe you!”
I was standing outside the pub when I had this minor breakdown at the news that Emma Stone allegedly had “a whole new face”, as my friend put it. As is often the case with grief, my first response was denial.
“It’s not true… It can’t be true…” I chuntered to myself as my friend proceeded to shove her phone under my nose, smugly flicking through pictures purporting to be “before” and “after” whatever cosmetic wizardry Stone had undergone. Much as my brain desperately wanted to reject the idea that Stone was turning into a clone, my eyes were struggling to follow suit. The Oscar-winning actor did seem to look different. Her jaw appeared tighter, cleaner. Her cheekbones higher, more prominent. Her eyes less hooded, the under-eye bags now non-existent. Even her nose looked altered – more pert and narrow than in days gone by.
It was unnerving. Stone was still recognisably herself, but every feature seemed subtly enhanced to create a shiny, elevated version – like she’d put herself through a Facetune filter, but in real life. And I hated it.
It should be noted that the La La Land star has yet to address the rumours and admit to any procedures outright. That hasn’t stopped the internet from speculating she’s had everything from a mid-face lift and endoscopic brow lift to eyelid surgery known as an upper blepharoplasty, which has become the procedure du jour. But regardless of the “what” and “how” of it all, I still feel disproportionately disappointed that she’s just not looking quite like, well, her any more.
Yes, I’m aware that it’s a bit odd to take a stranger’s possible decision to indulge in surgery, tweakments or whatever else as a personal affront. But Stone has always been my celebrity friend-crush, you see – the woman I’m delusionally yet unshakably convinced I would be mates with if our paths ever crossed in real life. She’s always represented the ultimate cool girl: super talented, with two Academy Awards already under her belt; silly and funny, the kind of whip-smart woman with enough rizz to never take herself too seriously; attractive but in an offbeat, distinctive way. The kind of woman I’d assumed would be far too confident and self-assured to fall prey to the pressures of an industry that all too often prizes identikit hotness over individuality.
She’s not the only “cool girl” to potentially bend to the whims of a new aesthetic either. Jennifer Lawrence, another woman whose off-the-cuff humour and undeniable acting chops have made me look up to her forever, said in a recent New Yorker interview that she has a boob job booked in and gets regular Botox. When asked if she’d had the new style of miracle facelift that everyone seems to be getting, she responded: “No – but, believe me, I’m gonna!”
Emily Blunt’s taut face has also fuelled a huge amount of speculation online; Lily Allen has openly enquired about getting a facelift, saying she only declined because she was too busy for the required post-op recovery time.
While I’ve long accepted that influencers would tinker with their faces, image being the cornerstone of engagement online, for some reason all this hits different. Cool girls, you see, are supposed to be too cool to care. But if these women, no matter how grounded and accomplished they might appear, aren’t immune… well, what hope is there for the rest of us?
I’ll admit, the fact that 37-year-old Stone is a full year younger than me also stings. She remains, particularly by today’s standards – which see better nutrition and exercise translate into 40 really and truly being the new 30 – a young woman. Time was, the only ones you’d see paying exorbitant amounts to look different were older people with money. This, at least, made sense: those in later life wanting to erase the ravages of time to stay relevant.
This tradition is still alive and well, of course, with the huge advancements in cosmetic techniques resulting in the likes of 62-year-old Demi Moore and 70-year-old Kris Jenner looking like they’re genuinely Benjamin Button-ing their way backwards through life. (The matriarch of the Kardashian clan has, at least, been incredibly transparent about her new face, crediting it to a deep plane facelift that cost a cool $100,000.) It brings to mind the faintly horrifying scenes in the cult 1985 Terry Gilliam film Brazil, set in a dystopian future in which the main character’s mother keeps having a series of gruesome-looking surgical procedures until she finally emerges looking more like her son’s love interest than his parent.
But these days youth is no barrier to enhancement. Take the fact that the number of people in their twenties getting Botox injections in the US has increased by 28 per cent since 2010, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. This has been sold to youngsters with naturally baby-smooth foreheads as “preventative” – the idea being, I guess, that if your face is too frozen with poison to physically emote, wrinkles have no chance of forming in the first place.
This non-invasive, “tweakment” side of the business has become ever more normalised for young people. In the latest series of America’s Sweethearts, a reality show about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, the girls (pretty much all in their late teens and early twenties) were casually offered discounts for Botox and fillers in one episode. It’s all presented as being as commonplace as getting a haircut or a manicure.
But this younger demographic is also increasingly going under the knife. One woman called Emily, aged just 28, told the BBC last month about her decision to get “six surgeries rolled into one” – among them a mid-face lift, lip lift and nose job – in order to achieve the desired “snatched look”.
My discomfort goes deeper than simply age. There’s an eerie sensation that it’s the same kind of beauty as everyone else in 2025. Just as we saw the rise of what was dubbed “Instagram face” in the 2010s – which filtered down from the likes of the Kardashians and other influencers to convince the masses to aspire to a poreless face with plump lips, full cheeks and Bambi-long lashes – now a new aesthetic has entered the chat.
Certain procedures giving a specific “look” seem to fall in and out of fashion, the same as clothing trends do (just look at the flurry of A-listers who suddenly appeared gaunt and cheekbone-y in 2022 thanks to buccal fat removal). These days, anyone rich enough to afford elite cosmetic enhancement ends up looking like a variation on a theme: snatched and lifted, yet with a dewy softness and high brows unencumbered by hooded eyelids or undereye bags. Everyone from Lindsay Lohan to Anne Hathaway seems to have this glow, like a homogenous parade of uncanny valley clones dipped in an identical sheen of perfection – not that many of them ever confess to this being a result of anything more than an elaborate skincare routine, of course.
What’s especially concerning is that all of this is coinciding with the dawn of AI bringing flawless, non-human faces regularly into our orbit. It feels like we’re heading towards the most unattainable beauty standard of all time: attempting to compete with ageless, computer-generated perfection.
I don’t actually blame the “cool girls” themselves for being swept up in this futile facial arms race. Every time I look in the mirror and see the lines etched ever deeper, or bits that used to be taut and firm succumbing to the inexorable pull of gravity, an unwelcome tendril of temptation creeps into my brain. It can feel hard to resist – especially when the societal expectation to stay forever young is constantly being reinforced everywhere we turn.
My only hope is that, surrounded by a sea of AI fakery and indistinguishable bots, faces that are unequivocally, authentically human – flawed, characterful, interesting – are going to end up proving the most powerful currency of all. I’m thinking of Aimee Lou Wood with her gorgeously distinctive teeth; Bella Ramsey, the epitome of “pale and interesting”, with their Victorian doll-like features and ivory skin. People who look unapologetically like themselves in all their blemished, idiosyncratic glory.
After all, perfect may be pretty – but it’s also pretty boring.
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