Over the summer, a plastic surgeon hung old movie stills of Denise Richards on his operating room wall. There she was in Stormship Troopers, blue-eyed with the kind of bold brows and piecey layers that defined the ’90s. In a way, she defined the ’90s. Richards was a sex symbol in a decade that absolutely idolized sex symbols, the star of Wild Things, a Bond girl, and also had cameos on almost every era-defining show—Seinfeld, Beverly Hills 90210, Saved by the Bell, Melrose Place, Married… with Children. But back to that OR. Fast-forward about 30 years to this past June, and Richards, at age 54, had decided to get a facelift.
"I wanted to put things back up, where they were before," says Richards, who has had about eight months now to reflect on her decision. It’s not the first time she has had plastic surgery—Richards had her breasts done at 19, and has had revision surgery for her implants since then. But, she says, it is the first time she’s had cosmetic surgery on her face. "I was terrified," says Richards, well aware that the world has watched her age. "Being in the public eye since my 20s, people know what I look like—a facelift is not something that I could hide."
Now Richards is opening up about her plastic surgery the way the rest of us talk about what we did Tuesday morning. She is matter-of-fact and unapologetic, discussing incisions, drains, and swelling. She’s sitting at home in front of scattered framed photographs, subtly made up with her long hair swept over one shoulder, and her daughter’s cat occasionally popping up into our Zoom. Richards is now best known for her roles on reality TV—she’s been on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and had her own shows, including Denise Richards and Her Wild Things. Talking to her post-facelift, though, it’s hard not to think of her in the aughts, when she was in the news for her marriage, pregnancies, and divorce from actor Charlie Sheen—because she just looks so much like her younger self.
"It is night and day," Richards says of her reflection before and after the facelift. "It’s shocking, actually." After she had the facelift, she adds, other celebrities "were more comfortable telling me about theirs, but I’m not gonna name names." Still, she says, it can be good to know that "it’s not just serums and working out and lasers" that make people like her look younger.
A Comprehensive Approach to Facial Rejuvenation
It’s not even just a facelift that makes Richards look younger. Her plastic surgeon Ben Talei, MD, says he also lifted the outer corners of her lips "to make the mouth look happier and sexier." He performed "a very minor and conservative upper blepharoplasty," he says, and a temporal brow lift "to correct the brow position." He also repositioned "the forehead and temples back to where they used to be." Dr. Talei used Richards’ own fat, taken from her thighs and reintroduced in a thin, even layer underneath the skin on her face and neck, to brighten her complexion and make her look all-around smoother and healthier. And then there was the actual facelift. "She looks calmer, happier, brighter now—it’s a character difference," Dr. Talei says. "I really wanted to brighten her eyes back up to how they used to be—super sexy…. I love her face."
It’s a good thing. "My face was in his hands," says Richards, who gave Dr. Ben, as she calls him, carte blanche: "I said, ‘You’re the artist. Whatever you want to do.’" Now Richards is ready to share in her own words all the details about what it was like to get these surgeries, including a couple of big surprises (mostly the pleasant kind).
The Decision to Undergo Surgery
"I’m one who says ‘never say never,’ but I always said I would never get a facelift, because that’s my face. This is how I make my money. I’ve been in this business a long time. People know what I look like. I’ve never done anything aesthetically to my face. This is my nose. I’ve done a little Botox. I’ve done very little filler—it made me look like I was heavy; it just did not work for my face. I’ve never touched anything [on my face] like that. If things go a little sideways when you do some other part of your body, you could cover it. So I was always scared of a facelift, but I did want to do my neck—my late mom would always say that she had a turkey neck. I think it’s genetic. I had tried that [lifting] tape—a makeup artist showed it to me—and I’m like, ‘Well, if that’s where I want it to go, why not just put it back there?’ It was something that I’d been thinking about for two years, going back and forth, and the last six months [before my surgery], I was like, ‘I have to do this.’"
"I had consultations with some doctors, and then I met Dr. Ben [Talei] through my doctor who did my [reparative] breast surgery, Dr. Rob Cohen. I’d gotten injured on a TV show when I jumped off a bridge and the harness ruptured the capsules [around my implants], so I had to have surgery [last May]. I’ve had breast implants since I was 19, and truthfully, if I could do it all over again, I would not get implants. Young girls need to know that it’s maintenance. You’re putting in foreign objects, and your body could reject them. I was so flat-chested—I wish that I had the confidence back then to embrace the body that I had. Over the years, I’ve had to have many surgeries because of my implants, but I’ve never just had them taken out completely because that’s a big surgery. Last spring I wasn’t ready for that kind of recovery, so I chose to have them replaced. Dr. Cohen is incredible and he did a brilliant job."
Editor’s note: When implants are removed and not replaced with new implants, the patient may need a breast lift to address sagging skin, says Melissa Doft, MD, a plastic surgeon in New York City. The breast lift adds time to the operation, as well as scars around the areola and the front of the breast, she explains. Removing and replacing the implant, however, uses the same incision sites, and can be performed in under two hours.
"Anyway, that’s what inspired going to Dr. Ben, because he’s in the same office. I was waiting in Dr. Cohen’s room, and there was a monitor showing all these before-and-afters [of facelifts by Dr. Talei]—I loved how the patients looked like themselves, but just refreshed. So it started with that."
"Dr. Ben started showing me what he could do—he’s like, ‘Tiny here, tiny there.’ It was a lot of little things…. He wanted to do the whole face and not just my neck. I was so scared to do that, but I thought, Well, if you’re going to refurbish a painting, you don’t do half a painting. Or when you remodel your house, it’s like the one room looks great, but the rest of the house looks shabby. So I looked at it from that perspective, and I thought, Yeah, it might look weird that my neck looks good, but then it doesn’t match the rest. So I just said to Dr. Ben, ‘I know I’m in good hands. Do your thing.’ And when I saw the before pictures he took, I was like, ‘Yeah, no—I do need a facelift.’"
The Surgical Process and Immediate Aftermath
"It was three weeks after I did my breast surgery, and since I’d already taken a few months off to recover from that, I thought, I’m just gonna do the facelift now too. If I thought about it too long, I may have changed my mind. I would’ve gotten scared."
"I talked to some other actresses who had their faces done, and I was shocked that they did. I always thought it was something you do when you’re older—not our age. [Richards turned 55 in February.] One friend, she’s very well-known, did not have her eyes done [when she got her facelift], and she told me, ‘Do your eyes. You will regret [not doing] it.’ And then my other friend, she’s like, ‘You need to have a facelift.’ I talked to friends who had had facelifts or that I knew would support my decision. I didn’t want to hear, ‘You shouldn’t do this,’ because at that point I’d made my decision."
"My oldest daughters were not happy that I was doing it. [Richards has three daughters, who are 22, 20, and 14 years old.] But I think now they understand, and they see that I still look like me. I think they were just worried, in general, of [me] having surgery. They were telling me I didn’t need it. I was too young. I told them that this is something that I want to do, and you may not agree with my decision, but I just want your support. I understand that you feel the way you do, but please know that this is something that I want to do for me."
"I didn’t want [my daughter] Sami to get a nose job about two years ago. So when she said she didn’t want me to get a facelift, she said, ‘Mom, you did not want me to get a nose job.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but you were 20 years old and that’s your nose. That could change the way you look. For me, he’s just putting things back where they were. I’m not trying to change the way I look; I’m just trying to put things back. There’s a little difference, in my opinion.’"
"But I understand her feelings. She said she wished she had my nose, but she got her dad’s nose. I told her, ‘Your dad has a beautiful nose, and it looks beautiful on you.’ The pressure of having to look a certain way, that’s hard—but how do I defend all of it, you know? I didn’t grow up with a mother that was in entertainment. I didn’t see her on covers of magazines. My daughters would come to photo shoots with me. They’ve seen me being all dolled up. That was my job. It’s hard for me to say ‘ignore the pressure,’ because I am guilty of being in a business where I talk about beauty, and show before-and-afters. So it’s a fine line."
"About two weeks before we did the surgery, Dr. Ben had to dissolve filler in my upper cheeks, and I was shocked. I said, ‘I haven’t done that in so long!’ It had probably been about a year and a half. I didn’t know that stuff stays, by the way. I think all of us are learning that now."
"The morning of the surgery, right before, he was talking about how he used to sew when he was a little kid. I’m like, ‘That’s so great that you sew.’ And then… ‘Oh, wait a second. You’re going to be sewing my face! I hope you can sew!’ I hadn’t even thought about that."
"When he drew [surgical markings] on me the morning of the surgery, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ He drew all over my face. But I get it now—and if I ever had any doubts, [seeing the results] fixed it."
The Recovery Experience
"My friend who told me I should do my eyes when I did the facelift—she was right. Dr. Ben took some skin out of my upper eyelid to open my eyes up. I don’t actually know every single thing he did, quite frankly, but I do know that. And I did the brow lift. [The official report from Dr. Talei: Richards had a facelift with a temporal brow lift, upper blepharoplasty, lip lift for the outer corners of her mouth, and fat grafting.]"
"Before the surgery, I had been scared of the unknown. When I started to hear, ‘Okay, your head’s gonna be wrapped,’ I started to feel a little anxious. You see people come out of plastic surgery with their heads all wrapped up like a giant Q-tip. I thought, Am I going to feel claustrophobic? But I wasn’t. It was like an ace bandage wrapped around to protect my ears, and I had two drains on top of my head. The next morning, Dr. Ben took the whole thing off—the wrap and the drains. I was not in a lot of pain on my face or my neck."
"I had stitches in front of my ear, behind my ear, on my chin, up here [behind my hairline], and then back here. But now you can’t see the scars. [Richards’ temporal brow-lift incisions are hidden behind her hairline, says Dr. Talei, and her facelift incisions trace down the hairline for a few centimeters below her ear.] Everyone said, ‘Don’t look at yourself for the first few days, because you’ll freak out.’ So I didn’t."
"Dr. Ben has his patients go to a dedicated recovery center for plastic surgery—it’s very funny, they try to keep everyone separate. There was someone next door, I won’t say who she was, but I could hear her voice [and recognized her]. You have to wait until somebody goes into their room, and then you can walk around."
"The recovery place has red light therapy, hyperbaric chamber, lymphatic massage can come to you to help with swelling. They have nurses 24/7. It was actually quite nice. I ended up staying a full week, doing the red light therapy, just taking care of myself and resting, because your body heals when you’re resting. I really took that time for myself. The recovery is very important, and I was very surprised by how fast I healed—not that much bruising, not that much swelling."
Post-Surgery Reflections and Results
"I will say, the brow lift is the most painful part, because the incisions are in here [above your hairline]. My girlfriends have asked me if they have to shave your hair. He didn’t. But it’s a headache that I’ve never experienced. It’s not a migraine headache. It’s different. I didn’t want to take pain medication—that’s just me, personally."
"My ears were a bit numb, and I had all those stitches around them, so I asked Dr. Ben if he took them off of my head and put them on the table! I said, ‘I won’t tell anyone if you did.’ But he did not. [Dr. Talei says it’s common to have some numbness around the ear for about three months following a facelift, and sometimes it takes about a year for feeling in the area to return completely.]"
"I think it was day two or day three when Dr. Ben said, ‘Go look at yourself.’ I was so surprised. I looked like myself, it was just swollen. [But] I was expecting something else, because we’ve all seen the movies, and [I thought] this could be a lot to take in. But no. I was very surprised."
"I’ve gone through surgery with my breasts before. I know the healing process, and to be patient. So I wasn’t an anxious patient. I know the results aren’t going to be immediate and there’s swelling. For me, the most important thing during the first two weeks was really taking great care of myself…. Things are still settling, and they say it could take even a year after the facelift for everything to really settle."
"At two weeks, I was able to go out in public—maybe 10 days, actually. I went out to a restaurant, and I just wore a hat. There was no bruising, or anything around my eyes. You couldn’t tell."
"Unfortunately, I started going through my divorce 10 days after I had surgery. So the second week wasn’t as calm as the first week. But I still took it easy, making sure that I took care of my incisions. Each day that went by, the swelling was getting better and better. I looked like myself, but better."
"Going through my divorce, my ex disclosed that I’d had a facelift. He had a photographer show up outside an appointment where I had some microneedling on my scars. So [my ex] told someone that I had a facelift, and said it was botched, which is really ridiculous."
"You know, I went back and forth about whether I was going to say anything about my facelift—um, he kind of let the cat out of the bag. I think I could have gotten away with, ‘Oh, she looks so much better after her divorce.’ I think I probably would’ve been able to get away with it—or not, I don’t know."
"But I would want to know what other women are doing. Back when I had my breast implants done in the ‘90s, we just weren’t open about that stuff. In a way, I think it’s good to be private. But in a way, I think it’s good to be open and honest—especially with other women that are my age and all of us growing up in the ‘90s together, sharing information and being able to say, ‘Well, this is what I did.’ It’s not just serums. It’s not just eating right and working out and doing all these lasers and stuff like that."
"I filmed Housewives six weeks after I had the facelift. [My ears were still numb and] I was trying to put earrings on when I was filming—I don’t think I ended up wearing them, because I was like, ‘I can’t even feel where the darn hole is!’"
"I said [I had a facelift] as soon as I showed up on camera. I just put it out there. At that point I knew I was going to talk about it, so I just said it on the show. They were surprised I was so blunt about it—because a lot of us don’t talk about it—so they were like, ‘You did?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, I did the whole thing.’ So I think they were more surprised that I said it—and then, you know, they were looking at my face."
"When Charlie [Sheen] and I went to the premiere of his documentary last fall, he was like, ‘I sure wish I had my neck done before I [filmed] that.’ I’m like, ‘Your neck? I wish I’d done my face!’ Like, my God, I can’t even look at it. That’s the biggest thing is seeing pictures before. I can’t believe it. It’s shocking, actually. There’s a huge difference. I don’t have any regrets. I really don’t. I am so happy, and I didn’t realize how good it would make me feel."
The Impact of Fat Grafting and Skin Texture
"One of the things that I was also so surprised by was my skin texture. I was not expecting my skin texture to be more youthful. Dr. Ben did some fat grafting, too, and I think that helped. He took some fat from my body. I have no idea where [in my face] he put it, but he did take it from my thighs, because I was like, ‘Why are my thighs so sore?’ My thighs were more sore than my face. I don’t know how he did everything—I probably don’t want to know. But he did some fat grafting, and whatever he did, it changed the texture of my skin. That was one thing that was an added bonus, and the change was immediate. [Dr. Talei explains that he used the fat from Richards’ thighs to create a yellow paste—a mix of her own microfat and platelet-rich plasma—which he injected underneath the skin of her face and neck, spreading a thin layer everywhere, to make her look brighter and improve the appearance of pores and wrinkles.]"
"I’m so grateful to Dr. Ben, I really am, because as we age, it doesn’t happen overnight, you know? But when you get a facelift, once you heal, it’s like night and day. You see a dramatic difference. It’s given me… Especially with what I’m going through in life, you know? I wasn’t going through a divorce when I got it, although there were obviously some major problems in my marriage. But it’s just given me a new lease on life. It’s given me confidence. And people have asked me, if I wasn’t an actress, would I have still had it? And I would have. I would. Because if I’m able to feel good, and if it gives me confidence, I’m grateful that I did it. It’s changed my life in such a good way. I had no idea. I wish I did it earlier, but I’m grateful I did it when I did."
"I think the most important thing for whoever is thinking about getting a facelift is expectations. I told Dr. Ben, ‘I don’t have unrealistic goals. I’m not asking to look 20 years old, but I want to look the best I can look for me, and still look like me.’"
"It’s very important to see before-and-afters from the doctor and understand your goals and what’s realistic, with whatever the surgeon is advising. And then, I think, once you make the decision—and it’s a big one—just do it. But it is surgery. My biggest advice is that—no matter what kind of plastic surgery anyone gets—you have to have that time to recover."
"In the future, a little Botox? I would be fine with that. But otherwise I’m not letting anyone else touch my face, except Dr. Ben. I’m hoping this lasts. [Dr. Talei says facelift results typically last about 10 years, but many of his patients do not opt for a second lift because they are happy with the way they are aging after turning back the clock once.] I take good care of myself, so I’m not sure what else I would do in terms of plastic surgery. But as I’ve said, never say never."
