Carrie Underwood Looks Different These Days — What Happened to Her Face?

Singer and pop/country superstar Carrie Underwood rose to fame in 2005 after she won the fourth season of American Idol. This means that, from the very start of her career, her face has been plastered on people's small screens and subject to the typical scrutiny that all celebrity faces endure.

This ever-present public observance may be why people have noticed that Carrie's face looks quite different than it used to, and the big changes seemed to happen around 2017. So what happened to her face? Here's what we know about why Carrie's face looks different, and the incident that sparked the changes.

Carrie has always had a youthful appearance. Although she first rose to prominence in 2005 at the age of 22, she doesn't look like she's aged much.

Yet there's one glaring difference about her appearance: the lower half of her face.

Those with keen powers of observation might note that her lips and jaw area look different than they did prior to 2017. And that's because she singer/songwriter and superstar experienced a life-altering accident in 2017.

She star fell outside of her home and injured her wrist. She shared the story of her fall initially in November of 2017, but later opened up about the fact that the fall was worse than she first let on and left her with greater injuries than she initially admitted to.

She wrote to fans at the time, "There is also another part of the story that I haven’t been ready to talk about since I have still been living it and there has been much uncertainty as to how things will end up. It’s crazy how a freak random accident can change your life."

She added, "In addition to breaking my wrist, I somehow managed to injure my face as well. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told [Carrie's husband] Mike that he had put between 40 and 50 stitches in" (excerpt via Entertainment Tonight).

She was revealing the extent of her injuries, she explained, in order to prepare fans for what she shared might be a "different" look the next time she appeared on camera.

But despite her apparent openness about the injuries and her subsequent change in appearance, the internet did what the internet does and began spreading rumors that Carrie had sought plastic surgery for reasons unrelated to an injury, and she was using the injury "excuse" to cover up the alterations.

In 2018, Carrie sat down with Redbook Magazine and talked about the fact that people assume the story about her injury is just a cover-up for plastic surgery.

She shared at the time, "I’m on some magazine every other week for something crazy. It’s a little sad because the truth is just as interesting. I wish I’d gotten some awesome plastic surgery to make this [scar] look better."

When Carrie appeared during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in 2025, people renewed the theory that she was receiving plastic surgery. In comment sections online under videos of her performance, critics wrote, "Lay off the plastics, honey. You're looking unrecognizable." Others wrote, "Enough plastic surgery, Carrie!"