Plastic surgeons explain Tom Cruise’s unrecognizable face after puffy-cheeked Super Bowl ad
Tom Cruise sparked plastic surgery rumors last night after debuting a new look while starring in a pregame ad for the Super Bowl.
Commenters said the 62-year-old actor’s face looked oddly ‘puffy’ and ‘stretched’ in the commercial, which aired at the start of Sunday’s game.
His appearance was made more jarring by the fact a trailer for Cruise’s new Mission: Impossible movie played just 10 minutes prior, where he looked like his usual self.
Plastic surgeons said they believed Cruise showed signs of recent filler in his cheeks. They also suggested that he had used Botox, which freezes muscles to help reduce wrinkles, and laser skin resurfacing, which removes damaged layers of skin and give them a more youthful appearance.
But the experts said there were no signs of more invasive procedures which require going under the knife, pointing out his skin appeared to have a natural sag around the jawline — which wouldn’t be the case if he’d had a face lift, for example.
Dr Guarav Bharti, a plastic surgeon at HKB Cosmetic Surgery in Charlotte, North Carolina, said: ‘I think the biggest thing with Tom Cruise is that he has historically aged pretty well.
‘But the biggest thing is his jawline definition has changed, and he now looks a little fuller on the Super Bowl and a bit more stretched out… instead of that harsh definition he typically has.
Viewers took to social media to confess they couldn’t believe how different the 62-year-old acting legend looked compared to his previous appearances, with several people commenting on the seemingly ‘stretched’ skin of his face
Tom Cruise pictured above at the Cannes film festival in My 2022
He added: ‘This can happen because of weight gain, or potentially due to an over-abundance of fillers in the area that stretches the skin out and adds more volume to his face.’
Dr Bill Kortesis, a plastic surgeon at the same clinic, said he also believed fillers were used.
‘Usually, when people are super thin [and athletic, like Cruise] they have a chiseled appearance and a thin face. They don’t have a full face.’
Fillers are soft, gel-like substances that are injected under the skin to restore lost volume, smooth out wrinkles and/or enhance facial contours.
They are generally made from natural or synthetic substances, the most common being hyaluronic acid — a naturally occurring substance found in the skin.
Once injected, they generally last six to eight months and cost around $500 to $1,200 per syringe.
Dr David Pincus, a plastic surgeon on Long Island, said it was also possible that Cruise had received fat grafts for fillers.
This involves removing fat cells from one area of the body and re-injecting them into pronounced lines and hollow areas of the face, in order to smooth them out and give someone a more natural look. Results are long-lasting and the procedure costs around $1,500 to $3,800 per single area of the face.
The surgeons said he may have received filler into his nasolabial folds — the fold running from the nose to the corners of the mouth — the ‘crows feet’ areas and the cheeks.
They also couldn’t rule out other cosmetic procedures such as laser skin resurfacing, where surgeons use a beam to destroy the outer layer of skin and heat the underlying later.
This is said to stimulate the growth of collagen, a protein that improves skin firmness and texture, and leads skin to become smoother and tighter as it heals and regrows. It costs around $400 to $500 per procedure.
Botox uses a toxin to paralyze a muscle beneath the skin, meaning that it doesn’t move and cause wrinkles to deepen in the skin. Botox generally lasts three to four months and costs around $180 to $750 per session.
Cruise appeared in an advert for Fox Sports: NFL, which featured the star slowly strutting into a darkened room filled with video screens featuring historical NFL moments from years past.
Night out: Tom raised eyebrows in October 2021 when he attended a baseball game in San Francisco with a noticeably puffier face
‘Tonight in New Orleans, we encounter a mission that doesn’t come along very often,’ Cruise said, alluding to his blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise.
The advert also featured sports stars including Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith, to promote watching sports on Fox.
It aired barely 10 minutes after Cruise was shown in another advert for the new Mission: Impossible movie, which was filmed in 2022.
Drs Bharti and Kortesis pushed back on suggestions Cruise may have had a face lift, saying the skin around his jawline appeared too loose.
And a source told InTouch in late 2024: ‘[Cruise] hates the idea of going under the knife because he’s terrified that it could leave him looking like a caricature of himself.
‘Don’t forget he had that chipmunk cheek nightmare when he got talked into getting filler in his face and it took months to go down, he was humiliated.’
Plastic surgeons also said that his decision to opt for a fuller head of hair may also be accentuating any differences in his appearance.
Representatives for Tom Cruise were contacted for comment.
Cruise’s face has been the subject of speculation in recent years, with cosmetic experts suggesting he has used fillers and skin tightening treatments to maintain his youthful looks. Some also suggest he has had a hair transplant.
There was also speculation over filler use in October 2021, when Cruise turned up at a baseball game in San Francisco with much fuller features.
Cruise has never admitted publicly to getting work done, but in February 2022 retired showbusiness executive Eileen Berlin, who became Cruise’s personal manage when he was 18 years old, said the actor was ‘obsessed with his looks’.
‘Tommy has built an aura around himself,’ she said. ‘I think he will do whatever it takes to preserve his youthful image as long as possible and will fight anything that stands in his way.’
