The Great Facial Filler Backlash: “It Got Carried Too Far”

Kristin Davis says it drove her to tears (“I’ve been ridiculed relentlessly”). Simon Cowell had all of his removed (“Enough was enough,” he said). So did Blac Chyna (“I just want it out”) and Courteney Cox (“I messed up a lot”).

We’re talking about hyaluronic acid facial fillers — those miraculous-seeming injections that add a bit of plumpness here and there to replace the erosion of youthful collagen over time. 

But we’ve all seen in recent years those “um, what’s wrong with their face?” photos of celebrities who suddenly looked distorted. And it’s not just Cowell and actresses, either, though male actors have been far quieter about such efforts (Tom Cruise, for instance, was accused of being one of “the chipmunk chaps” several years back when he suddenly sported very puffy upper cheeks when he smiled). 

“The backlash has definitely occurred,” says Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Jason B. Diamond, who notes that he doesn’t use dermal facial fillers in his practice. “Fillers became very popular between 2010 to 2020 due to social media and many celebrities and influential people were publicly sharing their experiences,” he says. “But enough people had complications that finally that tipping point was reached. The usual, widely performed dermal filler is inappropriately done and leads to bad results.”

San Diego plastic surgeon Diana Breister Ghosh concurs. “There was this excitement about the opportunity to replace volume without surgery,” she says, “but it got carried too far in that it started becoming a fix-all for everything — a higher cheekbone, a bigger lip, a more structured jawline. It got overused.”

One issue is migration. Just because filler is injected in a certain spot doesn’t guarantee it will stay there. We’re constantly moving our face, so filler can migrate from one aesthetically pleasing spot to another not-so-pleasing spot, giving you a weird lump like in a horror movie.

“Dermal fillers, when performed in the soft tissue in the face, is not supported by the bone,” Diamond says. “I have felt the usual, widely performed dermal filler [placement] is not anatomically appropriate my entire career. It will ultimately migrate southward and downward, where it looks unnatural.” 

Another problem was an erroneous assumption about the longevity of fillers. For many years, patients were told products like Juvéderm or Restylane would metabolize and vanish in six to 18 months. At that point, their filler would need to be replaced to maintain fullness. 

Except that’s not what happened. Filler can, in fact, become a bit of a zombie substance in your face. A 2024 study of 33 patients with filler found that in every case the filler was still there two years later — and, in one patient, it stuck around for 15 years. At some point, a percentage of filler often metabolizes, just enough to have it seem like it was gone, but not all of it. So patients would return to their plastic surgeon or med spa and pile more filler on top of filler that was still lurking around. And since filler is a foreign substance, it can sometimes cause an inflammatory response which leads to additional swelling.

“If the filler doesn’t stick around, sometimes the swelling or the tissue has a memory of that filler,” Ghosh says. “So even if there’s not still filler physically under your eye, the tissue has been altered in a way so it gets more swollen. So fillers can do a lot of harm if they are overdone and not done very meticulously. You want to be super careful.”

The process can be costly, too. Patients often pay thousands for filler, then sometimes have to pay thousands a second time to get it dissolved. One Austin aesthetician who specializes in injectables, who declined to be named, admits, “I have spent $5,000 getting all the filler removed from my face.” 

So never touch filler ever? Perhaps not. Lip filler, for instance, is still considered safe when done correctly. And many remain a fan of using just a smidge of filler in other places. “I’m a fan of lip filler and putting it very conservatively in the nasolabial fold area — between the nose and the cheek — which can just subtly make that crease a little less deep,” Ghosh says. “Or for what we call the marionette lines, which is the line between the corner of the mouth and the jaw.”

Filler has remained tremendously popular, according to statistics by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstruction Surgery. But another procedure has notably risen in popularity at the same time filler has received criticism — facial fat transfers, which likewise add volume (and have their own separate risk-reward profiles). “Using fat really helps to rejuvenate the skin and helps to build collagen; the downside is that it’s really hard to guarantee how much of it sticks around,” Ghosh notes. Another option is a deep-plane facelift, which is used to address sagging in the cheeks, jaw and neck and tends to avoid the stretched appearance — dubbed “the wind tunnel look” — of classic facelifts.  

Or you could, of course, not risk any downsides and just save money by letting yourself age naturally and look older with each passing year. 

Yes, that was sarcasm. If you read this entire story, we know you’re not doing that. 

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s July 2026 issue “The New Face of Hollywood.” Click here to read more.