Simone Biles is getting candid about her plastic surgery experiences. The 11-time Olympic medalist casually shared in a recent TikTok that she’s had three plastic surgeries, including two that people wouldn’t notice.
While the 28-year-old was coy in the video about what she’s had done, she later told People that she’s had breast augmentation, surgery to fix a tear in her ear, and a blepharoplasty (a.k.a. “bleph”), which is a surgical procedure done on the eyelids.
“I got a lower bleph because me and my family have, I call it the ‘Biles eye bags,’” she said. “We’ve just always had them, hereditary, and so that was just a big flaw. Every time I would go to a shoot, they’re like, ‘Oh, can we put some strips on her?’” Biles joked that she would get comments about her eyes, even when she had 12 hours of sleep the night before. “These are just hereditary, so it’s something that I wanted to fix,” she said.
While most people are familiar with breast augmentation, blepharoplasty isn’t a term everyone knows. What’s the deal with this surgery? We tapped three doctors who perform it for details.
Blepharoplasty is the most popular facial surgical procedure.
While the name for this surgery isn’t well-known in pop culture, it was the most common facial plastic surgery procedure in 2024, according to data shared by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Commonly referred to as bleph surgery, this can be done on the upper eyelids or lower eyelids, Linda N. Lee, MD, facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Mass Eye and Ear Facial and Cosmetic Surgery Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, tells SELF. But Dr. Lee says that an upper blepharoplasty is the most common.
“It’s a small surgery that takes the excess skin from the eyelid,” she says. “You just remove it.”
The surgery helps address the looseness skin can develop over time, as well as eye bags, Anthony Brissett, MD, a facial plastic surgeon at Houston Methodist and president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, tells SELF. “You’re removing skin and muscle and sometimes removing or repositioning fat in the upper and lower eyelids for a ‘youthful’ look,” he says.
There are different variations of this, Sachin M. Shridharani, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, tells SELF. “You can have an upper blepharoplasty, a lower blepharoplasty, or a quad blepharoplasty, which addresses all four eyelids,” he says.
