This Instagram Star Faked A Plastic Surgery Transformation For A Jaw-Dropping ‘Social Experiment’

If you haunt the beauty corner of Instagram as we do, you’ll probably know Alexis Stone, a Manchester-based drag queen with over 700,000 followers who specialises in unreal celebrity transformations.

Here he is as Cher:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmnpH0on1Yo/

And his Ellen was UNCANNY:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm1zTCiHe_p/

Alexis (real name Elliot Joseph Rentz) already had Botox and fillers, but back in August, he announced he would be undergoing major plastic surgery “everywhere from the neck up”.

In a video about his decision, he talked about the microscope of Instagram and how he felt he was being constantly judged for his appearance and character.

You guys know I’ve always been attracted to a different aesthetic… I’ve made cosmetic choices which differ from what the average viewer considers beautiful. I’ve been called crazy, I’ve been called botched, I’ve been called an addict, I’m told every single day that I’ve ruined my face.

“It’s just had such a crippling effect. I’m not happy with the outside. And for the longest time, every time I see myself in a monitor or when I edit, I don’t see it as me,” he continued. “I need to find my happy place, not anyone else’s. My body, my face, my future, my choices.”

In mid-October, Alexis claimed to have had his surgery, posting a photo of his heavily bruised and bandaged face in a hospital bed.

And in November, he revealed his new face.

“Before I had plastic surgery, I was called botched. So I just thought, f**k it, I might as well do what I’ve always wanted to do… I’m still going to be called names,” he said in the accompanying video. “If you don’t like how someone looks, just keep scrolling.”

Most of his fans were appalled, and people unfollowed him in their thousands. “Not against plastic surgery, but you look like a hot mess,” one person commented under the video.

“Yikes. You look 30+ years older, and botched. You look like a cross between Jocelyn Wildenstein and Joan Rivers. If I were you, I’d sue your plastic surgeons,” read another.

Over the next month, Alexis continued posting videos, with his transformation roundly disparaged in the comments each time. Then on New Year’s Eve, he uploaded a video announcing his collaboration with a skincare company… and ripped his new face off.

Yep, that was a mask.

Alexis explained that the whole thing had been a social experiment – he’d worked on the various prosthetics with award-winning SFX artist David Marti, and wore them every time he left the house for three months. That’s commitment.

“For the last year and a half, from when I started having Botox and filler, I have every day been called botched, I’ve been called a monster,” he said. “This, I have always believed, says more about them than it does me.”

There is such a stigma behind plastic surgery. People have this idea that you can only receive or want surgery if you are in need of it… [I want to bring attention to] the social construct of becoming a monster. If enough people scream and shout that someone’s a monster, or botched, it becomes believable.

Alexis is now being hailed as a genius, and says he hopes he’s “turned the mirror around” on the pass-remarkable world of Instagram, which upholds unrealistic standards of beauty, then chastises people for trying to meet them.

We just can’t believe the sheer effort that went into all this. What a way to start 2019.

• alexis stone
• plastic surgery