Karamo Brown is sharing the painful reality behind years of speculation about his appearance.
The 45-year-old Queer Eye star revealed in a new People cover story that a 2021 buccal fat removal procedure led to years of chronic pain, swelling, and complications caused by scar tissue and blocked saliva glands. Karamo says he kept his struggles private while facing constant online commentary about his looks.
“For years, people have been like, ‘Karamo‘s had plastic surgery. He has so much filler in his face,’” he shared. “I was like, ‘You know what? I can’t say anything because you can’t get into fights with the trolls.’ But I was suffering for years in pain and no one knew.”
According to him, he decided to undergo the cosmetic procedure after gaining about 70 pounds during the COVID-19 pandemic and feeling self-conscious about his appearance.
“I was a big boy, and everyone online liked to tell me how much of a big boy I was,” he said. “So, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe if I slim out my face, I’ll be cute.’ It turned into a year-and-a-half of pain.”
Karamo says scar tissue formed in his cheeks following the procedure, preventing saliva from draining properly and causing painful swelling.
“There’d be times you’d see me smile, and it was tight,” he says. “My cheeks would be big because they were full of saliva, full of scar tissue. I was in the worst pain.”
When he launched The Karamo Show in 2022, he said the physical symptoms became hard to manage while he was filming and sometimes he would “shoot six episodes a day” but there would be times when he was filming that his mouth “would get so dry and it would be so swollen.”
He later worked to lose 70 pounds during season two because it made the scar issue less visible.
“The scar tissue and the saliva were still there, but because I was skinnier, it looked kind of normal,” he says. “I stopped eating because it helped the feeling of not having so much scar tissue.”
One of the main reasons he’s opening up about his experience now is in the hopes that it will help other people.
“I know there’s other people suffering with their chronic pain,” he says. “I was fortunate enough to have the resources to find somebody who could help me, but I want to tell people that you don’t have to suffer alone. I wish I would have told people what I was going through and not allowed myself to just stay quiet.”
During the same interview, Karamo also broke his silence about the Queer Eye drama and allegations of bad behavior on set.
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