What Happened to Kamala Harris' Face? People Are Concerned After a TV Interview

Kamala Harris is a well-known politician who threw her hat into the presidential ring in January 2019. Although she officially dropped out of the primary election in December, the U.S. Senator from California has since been rumored to be one of Joe Biden's potential vice president picks. Whether or not that actually happens, people know what Harris looks like. Or what she should look like.

That's because in mid-July 2020, Twitter was abuzz with the same question: What happened to Kamala's face?

Here's the scoop: On Saturday, July 18, Harris appeared on MSNBC to discuss John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died a day earlier. The only thing many viewers could concentrate on, however, was Harris' face — and they specifically honed in on the senator's cheeks. Take a look at the clip, below, to see if you can tell that anything is "off" about her appearance.

She looks ... weird, right? And plenty of theories started floating around on Twitter shortly after Harris' MSNBC appearance. Some viewers flat-out refused to believe that was Kamala Harris at all.

One person tweeted, "That is not Kamala Harris, the question is.... where would she be???"

Another Twitter user wrote, "This is not what I recall Kamala Harris looking like... what is going on here?"

Yet another Twitter user offered a side-by-side look at what the "before" Harris looked like versus what she looked like during her July 18 interview — making the differences in her face stand out even more.

Some viewers suspected Harris might have gotten Botox, while others thought the senator may have went through with full-on cheek implants. Still others swore that even her teeth were noticeably different. People were convinced that some sort of plastic surgery or drastic change had recently happened since her last public appearance.

That's when some voices of reason came to explain what was really going on with Harris' face. And now everything suddenly makes perfect sense. "This is literally the same recording," one Twitter user wrote, posting a much clearer video of the interview. "Al Sharpton always records his segments on a phone from the television and posts it on his feed."

Another Twitter user pointed out the lighting was also partially to blame for the reason Harris' face looked so "off."

"They put her in poor lighting and with a different facial expression," they tweeted. "Anyone who knows anything about cameras, angles, lighting, or with common sense can tell nothings [sic] wrong with her."

It seems, therefore, the answer to "What happened to Kamala Harris' face?" is simple: nothing. A low-quality recording of the MSNBC interview seems to have distorted the senator's face. Because if you look at a clearer video of the same interview, Harris looks perfectly like herself. 

This combined with less-than-ideal lighting can explain why so many viewers did a double take on July 18 — and why they were all but convinced Botox was to blame for Harris' drastically different-seeming face.