Highlights

• Mickey Rourke's facial changes were mainly due to boxing injuries and multiple botched plastic surgeries.
• Rourke even admitted that he underwent multiple surgeries, which led to an unnatural appearance with overdone Botox.
• Aesthetic doctors have discussed how Rourke's face now looks "unnatural" with proportions thrown off.

MCU star Mickey Rourke has always been a controversial celebrity, and more recently, he's sparked controversy over his opinions on some Hollywood hot topics. He called Amber Heard a "gold digger" following her legal dispute with Johnny Depp and said that Tom Cruise was "irrelevant" to his world because he's been playing the "same" roles his entire career.

Of course, fans took to Twitter to defend Cruise by attacking the former MCU star's botched plastic surgery... or multiple surgeries. Here's the truth behind Rourke's changing face.

Updated April 2024: Despite his ever-changing facial appearance, Mickey Rourke is continuing to work in Hollywood. In 2023, he was in three projects, has already released "Jade" in 2024, and has nine other films in various stages of production slated to be released in 2024 and beyond. Rourke's acting abilities have been able to outweigh the fact that his face has changed markedly since he started acting on the big screen in the mid-1970s, and there are no signs of Rourke slowing down with his career anytime soon.

What Happened To Mickey Rourke's Face?

Mickey Rourke's boxing career is to blame for his facial changes

In the early '80s, back in his early days in Hollywood, Rourke was known as one of the prettiest boys in Hollywood. He was often compared to the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean. However, that reputation didn't last long. Throughout that decade, the Diner actor would always talk about his issues with fame and how he hated the industry.

"You go through the motions of feeling it but you know the studio owns your ass, the public owns your ass," he said in an interview in 1992. "So over a period of eight years, you slowly lose your spirit in a way," he added, referring to his transition into boxing in the '90s.

In just a few years as a professional boxer, Rourke "had effectively been dismantled," wrote Hollywood Reporter. "He would break his nose twice, snap his cheekbone and damage his ribs and toes. He would be told by advisers to quit the sport or sustain potentially permanent brain damage."

In his 1990 film Wild Orchid, the actor's cheeks were visibly swollen. Later in 2009, he admitted that these changes were indeed due to botched plastic surgery, as many speculated.

"Most of it was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing," he explained, "but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together."

These procedures would go on for years.

"Now I am pretty again. One more to go." he wrote on Instagram in 2017 alongside a photo of him, topless next to his then-plastic surgeon. His nose was wrapped in bandages.

Mickey Rourke's Plastic Surgery History

Mickey Rourke had to get plastic surgery to fix broken bones and remove a mass due to boxing

In 2009, Rourke confessed to Daily Mail that he'd had a total of six surgeries in his life.

"I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone," he shared. But in 2019, it seemed like the actor had gotten more work done on his face. That year, he stunned fans when he looked "unrecognizable" on Good Morning Britain for an interview with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid.

"#GMB who even was that?? He didn't look anything like Mickey Rourke," said a Twitter user.

Doctor Explains How Plastic Surgery Changed Mickey Rourke's Face

Between surgery and fillers being "botched" or "overdone" Mickey Rourke's face no longer looks natural

Aesthetic doctor and hair transplant surgeon Hala Elgmati talked to Mirror about the possible causes of Rourke's odd-looking face.

"Looking back to when Mickey was a fresh-faced 19-year-old, he was so handsome. Even up until his forties, with a little sign of aging, he looked masculine and attractive," she said. "But the work Mickey has done has negatively affected his facial proportions, to the point where it’s now quite jarring to the human eye." The doctor added that the work on The Wrestler star's face looked "botched" and "overdone."

"There have been lots of scientific studies into how 'beauty' and 'attractiveness' is quantified, and it all boils down to certain scientific ratios, which look at the distance between various points of the face," Elgmati continued. "In Mickey's case, those ratios have all been thrown out of synch because of the work he's had done on his face. This makes it hard for the human brain to process and that’s why some people see it as 'unnatural.'"

Elgmati was also certain that Rourke didn't get a hair transplant but was wearing an "artificial" wig instead.

Speaking about what was "overdone" on the actor's face, Elgmati said that Botox was to blame for it.

"It's so easy to overdo Botox. There are no lines whatsoever on Mickey's forehead, which is a shame in a man's face," she explained. "It's a really good idea to leave a few lines on the face so you don't lose your individual 'glow' and so you can still express yourself."

She was also sure that the actor "has full, maximum doses of Botox" to achieve his look, more frequently than he would probably have needed.

'In our brain, Mickey's look doesn't add up. His eyes still look aged whereas there's no lines whatsoever around his forehead," Elgmati stated. "His muscles are now in an almost permanently paralyzed state from constant Botox. The brain learns that it’s not able to move certain muscles and you actually lose the ability to move certain areas of your face."

Though she thought Rourke's fat-injected cheeks were "not too bad," in her personal opinion, "it could be softer to compliment his face." She also claimed that the lips of the Rainmaker star were "feminized" due to overfilling them with either dermal filler or fat transfer.

Rourke's face still seems to be evolving these days."He's melting into Val Kilmer," a fan said of his new face in the 2021 action thriller, Take Back. In the last few years, Kilmer's face also changed drastically due to throat cancer.

Source: Hollywood Reporter, Daily Mail, Good Morning Britain, Twitter, Mirror