While the stigma around plastic surgery and, more specifically, injectables, has faded significantly over recent years, few celebrities talk as openly about their experiences with it as Jenny Mollen.
The mother of two, actress, and the New York Times bestselling author of I Like You Just the Way I Am has cultivated huge followings on Twitter and Instagram—The Huffington Post has recognized her as one of the funniest women on both platforms—simply by being herself. And a notable part of that is her love of injectables, particularly Botox.
“Whenever I need it, I just gotta go in and replenish. I don’t ever plan it. I just think of it as an ongoing situation,” Jenny Mollen said of the frequency with which she gets Botox injections in a recent interview with Allure magazine. “I like to think of my Botox situation as I’m in school year-round.”
The 40-year-old Mollen often shares those occasions on her Instagram Story. Even in this age of increasing candidness and acceptance, Mollen’s transparency is striking. But for her, it’s the only way she’s ever known. Her parents, she said, were always fans of cosmetic enhancements, so she was never exposed to the stigmas against fillers.
“When I saved my placenta, my mom was like, ‘Can I have it to inject into my face?’” Mollen said. “I’m like, ‘I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen, but where are you going to get that done?’”
Mollen tried Botox for the first time at age 29 and immediately understood the difference it could make in her appearance. “That was the first time I started to think, OK, wait, this could look softer, or I could get rid of this line. Or, maybe if I did a little bit up here, these lines wouldn’t be so intense when I was raising my brows and just emoting,” she said.
She insisted, however, that it wasn’t insecurities about her appearance that led her to that moment. “No, I was just like, Wait, this could be better,” Mollen said. “Always in life, I’m like, Oh, is there something that would make this look a little bit more to my liking? It wasn’t really, Oh, I hate this about myself. It was, Let me see what I can do.
“I think you just kind of have to accept and embrace what’s happening to you naturally,” she said. “And, if there’s something that you can maybe lessen, cool. But you sort of have to just ride the wave. That’s the exciting part about living in this age—solutions are popping up all the time.”