Mickey Rourke Knows His Face Is a Mess

Back in the late ‘80s, when “Nine ½ Weeks” hit theaters, there was no better looking man than Mickey Rourke. With his return to professional boxing in early ‘90s and the many years that have passed in between, Rourke is now known, other than for his acting, for his surgically altered face. He is, though, the first to admit that he looks “a mess” because of too many plastic surgeries he underwent throughout the years.

Recently speaking to the media, Rourke acknowledges the pink elephant in the room for the first time in his lengthy career. Yes, his face is a mess, he says, but it was not entirely his own doing, as the injuries he sustained while boxing also helped pave the way for the face fans see now. That, plus a not too good plastic surgeon, have ruined Mickey’s good looks for ever, the actor says.

“Most of it [surgery] was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing, but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together. I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone. I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn’t healing properly. That was one of the most painful operations.” Rourke tells the media about how he has come to look like a faint shadow of his former gorgeous self.

In all fairness, the actor’s face has become almost unrecognizable throughout the years. As such, in 2007, Mickey Rourke came in at nine on the top ten world’s scariest celebrity plastic surgeries, as determined by a panel of surgeons and beauticians. Whether he really needed reconstructive surgery or not was not taken into consideration when the top was made.

Luckily for fans of the artist who is now in the race for an Oscar for Best Actor, having had surgery and a “mess” of a face mean nothing when it comes to talent. Mickey Rourke is, and will remain so for years to come, that one actor who comes closest to Marlon Brando – and his performance in “The Wrestler” speaks volumes in this sense.