Amber Tamblyn is revealing the plastic surgery procedure she underwent at age 12, and spoke out about how she feels about having made that decision all those years ago.
“As a little girl, I had ears that stuck out like butterfly wings. Some kids at my school in Los Angeles would make fun of them, and I’d often stare at myself in the mirror wishing my ears would lay flat against my head,” Amber, now 41, explained in the essay for the New York Times.
After landing a role in General Hospital at age 12, she underwent the procedure.
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“I opted to undergo ear-pinning surgery, a decision I’ve never made public until now. For years, my parents watched my struggle with private shame, though they understood I was a tough kid who could handle it. But once I knew millions of people all over the world would be judging me on their television screens, not just on a playground, that knowledge changed everything for me,” she wrote of her decision.
She continued, “Going under the knife felt like choosing a weapon I could wield in self-defense against my own disposability. It showed the world that I understood the assignment of assimilation—that I could do whatever it took to fit in, never stand out, the way my ears once did.”
Amber added, “Over three decades, my responsibility not just to my craft of performing but to the performance of youthfulness was reinforced constantly. Would I be less happy if I had fought against the desire to get my ears pinned back, if they still stuck out today?”
She shared, “I don’t know—but I do think about it often, and about my willingness to align myself with the industry’s expectations.”
She made references to the new Demi Moore film The Substance, calling the movie “a warning to all of us about what we might be willing to destroy in the name of desirability.”
Amber added that she’s “not saying that plastic surgery is bad or that everyone who elects to change their bodies regrets their decision.”
“I’m also not immune to wanting to feel beautiful and desired, and indulging in that need. I don’t apologize for what I’ve done, or for what I haven’t.”
She concluded, “My relationship to my body has changed, healed even, as I’ve become more protective, compassionate and honest.”
Another celebrity revealed that they underwent plastic surgery at a very young age: 14.
