In early 2012, Ashley Judd was on the receiving end of negative media attention over her swollen face, ABC News reported. After she appeared on a Canadian talk show that April, the media speculated Judd had gone under the knife in reports that called her names ranging from “cow” to “pig,” she detailed in a Daily Beast piece she penned in response. Judd denied she’d had any plastic surgery, explaining the swelling in her face was a side effect of strong medication, including steroids, she had been taking for over a month to treat an illness. (Her rep told ABC it was a sinus infection).
But regardless of her condition, Judd used her platform to make a broader argument about the media’s scrutiny of female actors. “When my 2012 face looks different than it did when I filmed ‘Double Jeopardy’ in 1998, I am accused of having ‘messed up’ my face … with a passionate lament that ‘Ashley has lost her familiar beauty audiences loved her for,'” she wrote.
Despite her efforts, she was at it again in 2020, when then-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren shared a video featuring Judd to Twitter in which her face looked “puffy.” Following yet another bout of plastic surgery rumors, Judd took to Facebook to note she receives regular Botox injections for chronic migraines, a condition that also led to weight gain. Once again, Judd was having to relay how none of it is anyone’s business.
