What Kristi Noem's Lips Looked Like Before Fillers
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is arguably one of the worst offenders of the "Mar-a-Lago face" trend. She's got the trademark pillowy cheeks and frozen expression of the look, but if we had to pick a centerpiece of her transformation, it would be her plump lips. Before she subscribed to this brand of beauty as a governor, she was still pretty popular, so there are a ton of photos that show just how much her mouth has changed since then.
Others have noticed, too. Social media is obsessed with the transformation of Noem's lips, with one user comparing the before-and-after pictures and racking up almost 10,000 likes on X.
Kristi Noem might want to spend more time learning about habeas corpus & less time doing plastic surgery. pic.twitter.com/sI1jZZqBih
— anyone_want_chips (@anyonewantchips) May 21, 2025
In the before photo, her lips are subtly enhanced with a lip liner that's overdrawn just enough to add shape, like many people do. However, in the after, they're inflated, glossed, and unmistakably artificial. The volume overwhelms her mouth area, and, as anyone familiar with celebrity transformations can spot, the filler seems to have changed the natural shape of her mouth and given it that telltale puffy look.
Kristi Noem's lip transformation began after 2019
When Glam spoke exclusively to a plastic surgeon about Kristi Noem's face transformation in 2025, we asked the question on everyone's lips: When did the politician get plastic surgery? Alongside a full rundown of her likely tweaks and their estimated timelines, our surgeon revealed that Noem most likely got her lips done after 2019. Digging deeper, this timeline makes absolute sense.
Lip fillers' popularity exploded in 2015 after Kylie Jenner got hers done. This changed beauty standards across not only model-centric spaces but also the medical-spa business. According to The Independent, a 70% uptick in interest in lip fillers follow Jenner's debut. Three years later, in 2018, Noem ran for governor with a campaign that centered around her support for President Donald Trump, and she mirrored not just his politics but also the aesthetic that had formed around him. We've seen folks like Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump receive enhancements that seemingly include lip fillers, so Noem going this route was unsurprising.
Still, cosmetic tweaks were probably on Noem's radar with or without her Trump card. She'd already hopped on the blond-hair wave, dabbled in suburban-mom aesthetics with the Kate Gosselin hair look, and rode other beauty trends long before any lip fillers. More importantly, Kristi Noem was a former pageant Queen, as seen in unrecognizable throwback photos, and studies like a 2013 paper published in The Eating and Weight Disorders Journal show that pageant contestants often struggle with body-image issues, potentially leading to cosmetic procedures. Ultimately, though, it's important to note that Noem, like every other woman, has the right to make decisions about her beauty procedures, and if she's happy, little else matters.