Karoline Leavitt’s up-close photo suggests she might be one step closer to a full Mar-a-Lago makeover.
In Vanity Fair’s bombshell profile of Trump’s inner circle, the 28-year-old White House Press Secretary, whom the outlet labeled as “The Mouthpiece,” seemed to show injection sites along the vermilion border of her lips, a visual nod to the nickname.
“It’s surprising to see somebody’s face have those sort of dark marks,” said Sam Escobar, senior editor of the Daily Beast’s beauty, health, and wellness site, The Looker.
“I do think that they were trying to maybe disguise it a bit,” Escobar pointed out, referring to the lip gloss coating Leavitt’s lips. “Instead, it had the opposite effect, and it just led it to have more of a highlighter effect, and that’s why it looks even more dramatic,” she continued.
Social media users made similar observations after Vanity Fair posted the close-up photo of Leavitt, taken by photographer Christopher Anderson, to its official Instagram page.
“The injection marks from the lip filler,” one user commented with laughing emojis on the post, with more users chiming in. “Why would they use a pic like this?” another user replied, prompting a third to add: “Intentionally.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Anderson’s representatives for comment on the photographs, but has received no immediate response.
The photograph isn’t the first time this month that attention has been given to Leavitt’s lips.
During a speech in Pennsylvania earlier this month, President Donald Trump, 79, paused his speech on the economy to comment on Leavitt’s “beautiful face and those lips that don’t stop-op-op-op, like a little machine gun.”
Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, plastic surgeons in Washington, D.C., have said they’ve seen more clients seeking the “Mar-a-Lago face”—a look that board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Lisiecki told HuffPost is characterized by overfilled cheeks, full lips, and taut, smooth skin, which some say also includes a full face of makeup.
The Daily Beast has been unable to verify whether any of those accused of having a “Mar-a-Lago face,” including Matt Gaetz, Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, and now—at an early stage—Leavitt, have turned to plastic surgeons or other cosmetic enhancements.
“She does appear in this interview to have enhanced fullness of her upper and lower lips,” Dr. Jennifer Harrington, a board-certified plastic surgeon and adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, told the Daily Mail, commenting on Leavitt’s plump-looking lips during a September Fox News interview.
Harrington suspected that the press secretary had lip filler injected, adding that the “subtle” appearance of Leavitt’s lips in the interview clip felt like she had a “natural-looking boost with just 0.5 to 1ml of filler per lip.”
“When you first get your lips done, they can look uneven—it takes a little bit to settle,” said Escobar, noting that “bruising and swelling” can often be present right after lips are injected with filler. “I would be guessing that either it was done recently or she’s just a slow healer,” she added.
In an interview with The Looker, Dr. Dara Liotta, a double board-certified facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon in New York City, suggested that fillers are best done at least three months before a major event where someone will be photographed—such as a wedding or, in this case, a Vanity Fair photo shoot.
“What I probably would have done is put concealer all over her lips and then use lip liner, and then put dark lipstick on her,” Escobar said.
Unlike Vice President JD Vance, who joked he’d pay “$100 for every person you make look really s---ty compared to me,” on the cover photo of the Vanity Fair issue, Leavitt did not appear to request dark lipstick or concealer.
The Daily Beast has contacted Leavitt’s representatives for comment regarding the alleged lip injection marks in the photograph, but received no immediate response.
