Career
Lee Yoo-ri started her career quite young, starring in one of the original School TV series as her debut, School 4 in 2005. This instantly became a hit and made her face recognizable to the masses. Although it wasn’t her first time dealing with the Korean entertainment industry, her role in School 4 is generally regarded as her debut, due to the nature of first few roles she accepted, which were when she was still training and thus fall under the pre-debut era. She has gone to work on various projects spanning multiple genres, but has frequently been typecast as the antagonist in much of it. Her face and profile definitely played a role in shaping her presence in the industry as someone who is perfect for the antagonist roles. Recently she has worked on My Father is Strange and Hide and Seek, two mildly successful dramas with average ratings, that has their auditions on their toes. Not only that, she has made cameos in hits such as Another Oh Hae-young, too! Her portfolio is filed with variety and depth, truly a talent that could easily adapt to any script given to her.
Plastic Surgery Clinic Advertisement
Part of her career that relates to the reason why most associate her with plastic surgery; the advertisement she did for Binobagi as their brand ambassador. Binobagi is a world-renowned plastic surgery clinic that is quite famous among locals and international Korean pop fans, alike. The ad features her as the ideal of beauty, while the first part sort of called out those with a weirdly shaped face, mostly around the jaw and chin area. This might have caused some misunderstandings with fans, which initially spurred the rumors, because of the sensitive nature of the advertisement and the thought that she endorsed the brand through an experience of some sort.
Speculations
After the advertisement aired, fans went wild with the speculations. Those speculations were coupled with the resurfacing of clips from Lee Yoo-ri’s acting debut and the period soon after. Most of the accusations point to the change of her face shape and nose definition, something which is quite obvious even when done by professionals, so let’s take a look at the evidence compiled below!
Before
Her appearance in the TV series, School 4 became the center of these accusations due to the nature of her appearance. Unlike her currently feminine and demure appearance, her physical qualities exuded a more masculine charm. This is supported by her short, shaggy hair and rounder face shape. Fans also argue that her nose appeared to be bigger and rounder. There’s no concrete evidence that it isn’t just makeup making her features appear this way, but surgery is definitely a plausible cause. The pictures above are from two separate dramas she had done in her early. As you can see, her face shape remains the same, although not as defined, the sharp edges of her jaw complete with roundness around her cheeks are consistent indicators that were previously mentioned. The picture where she has glasses on also emphasized the size of her nose, something fans has pointed out to be an even more compelling evidence that she has done surgery to improve the size and increase its height, creating a more button-like nose that is considered ideal for Koreans.
After
The pictures above are two of her more recent pictures, pointing to her improved, after-surgery facial transformation. Supposedly, her surgery is most obvious when viewed from her profile, showing improvements to her nose to create more height and slope that wasn’t there previously. As seen above, her nose appears to have diminished in size and is also a lot more refined than before, where her nose used to lack a defined bridge which is present now. Now, the nose stands stark against her dainty and delicate features when looked at from the side. Her jaw is another area that fans have pointed out. Previously, her jaw was sort of squared-off and angular in a sense, although masked by youthful fat around her cheeks and contours. Now, it appears that her face shape is a lot slimmer and smooth, creating the ideal V-line, with no sharp edges anymore. This could be attributed to puberty, as female faces are known to be develop and grow softer as they age, yet fans are sure it is due to surgery. The procedures they pointed to are along the lines of jaw-shaving and fat grafting, in order to achieve the look Lee Yoo-ri supposedly has. After the speculations surfaced, the actress tried to set the record straight in an interview. One of the reporters asked her about her career at debut, and if it was safe to show pictures from her time as a rookie actress. She replied with the statement that she has not changed much since then, but it was safe to say that she wasn’t showing those pictures anytime soon. She stated that, all in all, her face shape changed the most since then, and it could be attributed to natural factors such as puberty and the like. So what do you think of Lee Yoo-ri’s facial transformation? Is it artificial or from her natural genes? Comment your thoughts down below!
