Ricki Lake said she felt a little judged by her friend Rosie O’Donnell after deciding to have a facelift in 2024.
Speaking on “The Weekend View,” Lake said she chose the procedure after losing 40 pounds naturally, without medication. The weight loss, she explained, left her face and neck looking different.
“I wasn’t trying to turn back the clock and look 20,” she said. Lake added that she embraces her age and her natural gray hair.
Still, she said O’Donnell, whom she considers a close friend, initially questioned her decision. Lake recalled O’Donnell asking why she needed the surgery after seeing the results of procedures some of Lake’s friends had undergone.
O’Donnell later had the same type of surgery herself, after losing 50 pounds on Mounjaro. In a post she shared in May, she wrote that she had once considered a facelift a betrayal of feminism and of women who choose to age naturally. Her feelings shifted after the weight loss, she said. “It wasn’t wrinkles—it was gravity,” she wrote.
Lake said her own procedure included a deep-plane lower face and neck lift, as well as a CO2 laser treatment. She did not have surgery on her eyes, she noted, and said she was delighted with the results.
Lake has also described the decision as impulsive. On the “Inside Edit” podcast in March, she said she did little research before deciding to have her face done. After a consultation in mid-June, she scheduled surgery for the following month.
She said the loose skin beneath her chin after losing 40 pounds was a major factor. It wasn’t about wanting to look younger, she explained; the skin simply wasn’t going to tighten back up on its own.
