Troye Sivan called out a doctor who criticised his looks. But the ‘random sicko’ says he won’t stop

If you are one of South African-born Australian It boy Troye Sivan’s 27.4 million social media followers, you may not have realised something was awry.

But a vulnerable, 920-word personal essay published on the 30-year-old’s newly created Substack exposed the truth: “What good is money and modern medicine if not to fix all of these flaws that this random sicko f--ko plastic surgeon told me I have in an Instagram reel?”

With his post last week, the One Of Your Girls singer reiterated a truth often glossed over – stars can and do see the good, the bad and the ugly that’s said about them online.

The ugly can sometimes be good, as one TikTok user was pleasantly surprised by in June, when Kylie Jenner granted her request and publicly revealed her breast implant details, saying “hope this helps lol”.

Jenner’s relationship with cosmetic procedures, however, has played out on reality television since she was 17 – and was an asset the now 28-year-old leveraged to grow Kylie Cosmetics’ (disputed) valuation to $US1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) in 2019.

In Sivan’s case, it was plain ugly. London-based cosmetic doctor Zayn Khalid Majeed shared a two-minute video, which was deleted after Sivan made known that he saw it, picking apart Sivan’s “problem areas” based on red carpet footage from the NGV Gala in Melbourne in December.

Majeed compared the footage to studio images of Sivan, and claimed Sivan – whose photo appears on the Wikipedia page for the term “twink”, which is LGBTQ slang for slim, youthful-looking gay men – was showing signs of “twink death”.

After highlighting shadows and “volume loss” in Sivan’s face, Majeed then posed a hypothetical scenario to his 211,300 combined Instagram and TikTok following. If Sivan was Majeed’s patient, he would recommend various “improvements” such as dermal filler and skin boosters.

“I’ve struggled with my body image for a lot of my life, as I’m sure most people have,” Sivan, who did play a young Wolverine in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine but rose to global fame as a teenage YouTuber, wrote to his 13,000 Substack subscribers.

“I’m historically famously skinny, and I’m not THAT skinny any more. I’m historically famously twinky (I am still the Google search result image for ‘twink’), and I’m not THAT twinky any more. Oy vey.”

Sivan then detailed the conflict he grapples with internally. He believes “every body is beautiful” and is “body positive to my core” – plus a fashion industry head told him not to “f--- with your face” to remain unique, happy, chic, weathered and wise – but he is not immune to self-flagellation.

The cracks, Sivan says, are starting to show. And he knows a fat transfer to his under eyes will cost him $US3000 ($4300) because he’s enquired.

“I knew on the night of the NGV Gala that I did not feel like I looked good on the red carpet,” Sivan wrote. “I checked my Instagram tags and was definitely like … oh. It wasn’t great.”

Seeing Majeed, whom Sivan does not know, post unsolicited medical advice compelled Sivan to toy with, “for a fair few days”, the idea of undergoing cosmetic procedures.

“So, who’s going to win out in [sic] the end of the day? … I’m embarrassed to say, but I can’t make any promises,” Sivan wrote. “Keep your eyes on my under eyes for updates.”

The essay was originally published under the headline “f--- this guy!!” but after Majeed removed the offending video and sent Sivan a “really thoughtful and sweet message apologising”, Sivan changed it to “feeling a bit uggo (ugly).”

I oscillate constantly between feeling like I’m ageing in a good way, getting ‘sexier’ with time, and then feeling like Gollum’s very close pop-singing relative.

“I felt terrible, and it was never my intention to make him feel like that, which is why I reached out to him directly to apologise,” Majeed later told BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat. “Sometimes you don’t realise the impact that you can have.”

Majeed’s since-deleted video represents a wider trend of cosmetic doctors, surgeons and dermatologists growing their social media followings by theorising what procedures celebrities have undergone, or recommending what they should do.

The cosmetic doctor said he wants to use his voice to “shape conversations for the better” and does not want to contribute to the “negative beauty standards” people face.

Majeed, however, will continue analysing celebrity faces on social media because it’s “important to demystify surgeries that celebrities have and educate patients.” And, he says, there’s an appetite for them.

There are “no hard feelings from my side whatsoever,” Sivan wrote in an editor’s note. “Thanks for all the love guys.”

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