14 DAY TRIAL // Mickey Rourke, once one of the most handsome men in Hollywood, has long been dubbed the best example of what bad plastic surgery can do to ruin a flawless face. After some time flying under the paparazzi’s radar, the actor has emerged once more – and he’s completely unrecognizable.
The image attached to this article – believe it or not – is of Mickey. He was photographed after a workout a few days before and not only does he look slimmer and more muscular, but he also looks absolutely different in the face.
A fresh batch of paparazzi pics posted over at the Daily Mail confirm that this isn’t just an impression: the eye isn’t deceiving you, Mickey is really looking very different today from how he looked, say, one year ago.
The British tab believes the transformation is all down to Mickey’s new health and workout routine, which has helped him lose considerable weight while also packing on muscle mass.
Considering the effort the 61-year-old star might have put in, the Mail concludes that he’s probably preparing for the role of openly gay Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas in an upcoming biopic, in which Rourke had shown interest as early as 2009.
“On Tuesday, Mickey stepped out looking skinnier than ever as he went shopping with a male pal at the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles. Dressed in sports gear, a grey hoodie and a black beanie, perhaps Mickey was trying to recapture some of his youth for the part,” the tab writes.
We don’t know about his success in terms of capturing his youth, but Mickey is definitely so transformed that you might need to do a double take to convince yourself it’s really him in the photos.
TMZ’s Fish Wrapper says the transformation can’t possibly be due just to weight loss, saying that Mickey probably “stopped being his own surgeon” and stopped messing with his face.
While the e-zine admits that this is “the best Mickey Rourke has looked in decades,” it’s completely off base in the surgeon comment because the actor has never made a secret that his botched face was the result of a set of circumstances he had no control over.
First off, years ago, Rourke gave professional boxing a try and, after a particular bad match, he had to go under the knife to fix the extensive damage to his once handsome face. The result was disastrous and in all the subsequent interventions, Rourke tried to fix what was botched then.
By the time he made his comeback to movies with the superb “The Wrestler,” there was nothing about his face to recall the heartthrob of “9 ½ Weeks.”