Jesse Metcalfe says the only cosmetic procedure he has ever tried was Botox, and one bad result was enough to stop him from doing it again. The actor said he had a little bit of Botox in his forehead one time, then got home and realized his eyebrows were uneven.
“I’m never doing this again,” Metcalfe said in remarks published March 30, adding that while he is not opposed to non-invasive procedures, he is not really looking to go under the knife ever. He said he wants to do everything he can to maintain the elasticity of his skin before doing anything like surgery.
The disclosure is unusual for an actor who has spent much of his career being judged on looks as much as roles. Metcalfe, 47, said that being fresh-faced can be a disadvantage at his age because people want him playing more mature characters, including father roles, and he sometimes does not look old enough for what casting directors have in mind. He also said people trust him in beauty and skincare partly because he looks much younger than he is.
That is also part of the backdrop to his comments. Metcalfe founded NUTRL Skin, and his remarks came after years of public attention focused on his appearance and his steady work in film and television. He starred in John Tucker Must Die in 2006 alongside Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel, after a run that included Desperate Housewives.
He said he was fired from Desperate Housewives after the first season because the creators did not know where else to take his storyline, and he recalled being told by Marc Cherry, “Hey, this isn’t Desperate House-gardeners. This is Desperate Housewives.” Metcalfe said he was told he would not be a series regular moving forward, though he would be brought back intermittently. He said he left with no hard feelings and took it in stride, thinking, “This is only the beginning.”
For Metcalfe, the Botox episode seems to have settled the question for now. He may be open to keeping his skin healthy, but he says he is done with the one cosmetic move that left him staring back at uneven eyebrows and a firm no.