The cast of Made In Chelsea brought bucket loads of drama onto our screens when we last caught up with them - and now they're returned to our screens for a brand new season, hurrah! However, as is often the case with reality TV stars, some fans are more concerned about Reza Amiri-Garroussi's looks than watching the chaos unfold. In fact, it appears to be a recurring theme with the latest seasons of MIC - google searches for 'Reza plastic surgery' and 'Rez before and after' start trending online, according to Google Trends. People are seemingly obsessed with whether or not Reza Amiri-Garroussi has had plastic surgery. Oh internet, how predictable you are.
Why do people think Reza Amiri-Garroussi has had plastic surgery?
Before getting into the speculation, it's important to note that Reza has never publicly addressed rumours of surgery. Although fans have accused the MIC star of getting a nose job and Botox in recent years, there's absolutely no proof - with Reza himself not commenting. But, regardless of whether he did or didn't make some tweakments, this level of intense speculation in inappropriate.
Sometimes, there are blurred lines when it comes to celebrities - especially reality stars like Reza - but it's no one else's business to 'uncover' a celebrity's alleged plastic surgery, or judge them if proven true. There are a number of reasons why people undergo surgery, from medical to cosmetic.
Male tweakments are also not abnormal. In fact, they're on the rise. In 2020, it was estimated that 265,000 men had botox, while the British College of Aesthetic Medicine reported male patients went up by 16% during 2022. From Joe Jonas to Zac Efron, James Arthur to Liam Payne, the internet is constantly speculating (and often, trolling) over what celebrities have done to their faces.
A 2022 report revealed that social media pressure has been linked to the cosmetic procedure boom. Conducted by Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the report has claimed that pressure from social media to focus on the 'perfect body image' is what makes young people increasingly turn to procedures such as botox and fillers.
Naturally, female celebrities bear the main brunt of the toxic obsession, but if we won’t stand for people dissecting women’s looks online, surgically altered or not, we shouldn’t allow people to do it to male celebrities either.
Reality TV can be a difficult environment to manoeuvre. In the past, contestants from the likes of Love Island, Married At First Sight and Big Brother have spoken out about on the trolling they experienced and revealed haunting impacts on their mental health.
Frankly, just as speculation on X (formerly know as Twitter) around Reza's ‘unrecognisable new look’ perpetuates plastic surgery rumours, trolling celebrities online for their alleged surgical treatments only encourages a world where we, just like celebrities, are damned if we do, damned if we don’t when it comes to cosmetic treatments. It reinforces a dangerous precedent about the pursuit of perfection.
In short: we shouldn’t view anyone’s appearance as an object with which the public can scrutinize or mock – whether they’ve changed it on purpose or not.