The Complete Transformation Of Kristi Noem Has Heads Turning

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Kristi Noem isn't afraid of anything. It's a skill she's honed from a young age. She simply made the decision not to let that particular emotion impact her life or the decisions she makes. "[I don't have] fear that sits with me and lasts any period of time," Noem told Elysian. She did, however, admit that some of the stories doing the rounds about her in the media sometimes have a tendency to get under her skin, but the criticism and derogatory comments don't ignite any fear.

Noem's self-professed lack of fear has led her to take risks — big ones. In July 2025, she was making headlines for all the wrong reasons. It came to light that she accepted — and failed to publicly disclose — $80,000 a group known as the American Resolve Policy Fund paid her while she served as the governor of South Dakota. She was reportedly paid this large sum for providing fundraising assistance to the group, which has been involved in some suspicious activities. Some of these activities related to targeting news outlets on social media that were reporting on Noem's questionable use of taxpayer dollars during her tenure as governor. And indeed, Noem wasn't shy about spending her constituents' money on fancy rugs, chandeliers, and a sauna while she called the governor's mansion home — this shopping expedition totaled $68,000 in taxpayer dollars.

And yet, Noem claims she truly cares about people. "My decisions come from a place of truly loving people," she told Elysian, adding that the media often warps people's perception of her. Noem is a complicated woman who is the product of her upbringing and circumstances, and to say she's changed a lot over the years is an understatement.

Kristi Noem was born in 1971 in Watertown, South Dakota, and grew up roaming her family's ranch in Hamlin County. She spent her childhood becoming familiar with the inner workings of the farm, learning how to drive tractors, and mastering the art of herding cows. Her upbringing was different from that of most of her peers — instead of spending her teenage years attending parties and getting into teenage trouble, Noem spent most of her time with her family doing what they did best — ranching. "I was the third of four children and a tomboy," Noem told Elysian, adding that she was her father's child through and through. "My dad was a cowboy. Everything he did was an adventure. ... We enjoyed chasing cows, driving tractors, and working together."

In her book, "Not My First Rodeo: Lessons From the Heartland," Noem gave readers a glimpse of her childhood — Sundays were spent attending church; the rest of the time she was learning about the responsibilities that came with running a ranch. When it was calving season, she got roped into helping the cows deliver their babies, and even though she learned to work hard at a young age, she still believed the ranch was the place to be. "[Y]ou just assume that this way of life is something that God would want everybody to be able to live," she wrote in her book.

Kristi Noem has weathered several tragedies, and the way her father raised her can arguably be considered one of them. Noem's father was tough on his kids, and she recalled in her book, "Not My First Rodeo," that her dad once left her to drive the family's truck back home all by herself when she was around 13 years old. "As we started rolling down the road, he suddenly remembered that he needed to bring another vehicle home too. So he turned to me and said, 'Here, come take the wheel. Take the truck home.' His only advice: 'Make your corners wide,'" Noem wrote. Miraculously, she managed to get the vehicle home without incident. But this was hardly the first time her dad left her all on her own to do something no kid should be expected to handle by themselves.

When Noem was 10, she and her father went hunting. In what was seemingly a spur of the moment decision, her father told her to make her way back to camp alone. Terrified, Noem did as she was told. "[A]s strange noises came and darkness fell, I had to rely on my instincts and my horse to find my way back to our tent," she said during a speech at a National Rifle Association gathering in 2023. Noem's mother told her years later that her father hadn't really left her alone — he had followed her from a distance to ensure she didn't get lost. Still, the memory clearly still haunts Noem, though she has presented it as an example of her ability to handle anything life throws at her.

This might be hard to believe in the present, but Kristi Noem used to be incredibly insecure. Her father likely played a part in this. Noem admitted in her book, "Not My First Rodeo," that her father was a tough man to please. She eventually left the ranch to find a job elsewhere after she tried and failed to please him on numerous occasions. The fact that Noem herself was a perfectionist didn't help matters. Her high school years were filled with extracurricular activities — she was playing two sports, cheerleading, and participating in the drama club. She was also the editor of the school newspaper and the president of the National Honor Society.

During her candid interview with Elysian, Noem admitted that she once had very low self-esteem. "I saw myself as someone who could not accomplish a lot," she admitted, adding that her mother became worried about her. "She thought at the time that I could potentially be suicidal because I had such a poor self-image. She was troubled because she felt I lacked a purpose for my life," Noem said. Her mother sat her down and had a talk with her. "She read me a passage of scripture out of the Bible that talked about how God saw me instead of how I was viewing myself," Noem said, adding that that was the day she realized her fears were a choice and that she could make a different one. "I certainly am a normal person who at times becomes worried, but I choose not to be afraid," she said.

Kristi Noem and her husband, Bryon Noem, got married in 1992 — Kristi was only 20 when she said "I do," but she'd known Bryon since high school. "He was two years older than I ... I liked him first," Noem told Elysian. She kept her affections a secret for the entirety of Bryon's high school career, only telling him how she really felt when he went off to college. Bryon, however, wasn't as bold as she was. "He was very shy. He wouldn't even talk to me in public," Noem recalled. Still, she didn't give up on him. Secret get-togethers in Noem's driveway eventually turned into public dating — and eventually, marriage. The couple welcomed three kids — Kassidy, Kennedy, and Booker.

Noem and Bryon seem like the perfect fit. Both love the countryside and farming, and Noem had praised Bryon on multiple occasions for being a supportive spouse who tended to the ranch and their kids when she was away working. In a 2019 column for South Dakota State News, Noem offered praise for her husband and all he does in her absence. "I am blessed to have a husband who recognizes how wonderful it is for me to come back to a clean house and tended family, and he tries to make that happen," she wrote. "But over the years, what has made me love him more each day is the way he loves our kids."

Kristi Noem's three kids never got to know their grandfather. When Noem was eight months pregnant with her first child, she received a devastating phone call — her father, Ron Arnold, who had been only 49, had died. Noem was away from home attending college when she received the news. She wrote about that fateful day in her book, "Not My First Rodeo." "When Dad passed away, it was devastating for our entire family. For me in particular, he was my best friend," Noem wrote. "[I] had planned my entire life just to grow up and to work with him and be in business with him. So, when he died, I couldn't even imagine what the next day would look like."

Arnold died in a grain bin accident — he was trying to separate crusted corn when he fell into the bin. Even though rescuers managed to extract him alive and get him to the hospital, Arnold died after being admitted. To Noem, who knew her father better than anyone, his tragic death wasn't entirely surprising. "It was not a big surprise that Dad would take a risk like he did that day in the grain bin," she wrote. In the aftermath, Noem promised herself that she would devote the rest of her life to making sure she became the kind of woman who would make her dad proud.

It is in part because of her father's tragic death that Kristi Noem decided to step into politics. In her book, "Not My First Rodeo," Noem recalled how her father was a problem-solver. "Kristi, we don't complain about things. We fix 'em," he used to tell her. So after all the taxes that had to be paid after her father's death nearly cost her family their farm, Noem decided she was going to do something about it, and so her venture into politics began. In 2006, she was elected to the South Dakota House of Representatives. By 2010, she won a House seat. Becoming a member of Congress wasn't exactly easy, however.

"It felt as though I was attending college again," Noem told Elysian. "The first month or two was incredibly lonely, something you could not have prepared for. You spend the majority of your time alone traveling back and forth." Because Noem was spending so much time away from her family, she was extremely motivated to get the job done. She learned how to forge relationships with the right people, how to convince lawmakers to help her with her causes, and sometimes, she raised hell. "I was very bold and got into some tough fights with the leadership in the House, national leaders that had never been challenged before, and they did not react well. But I would say that at the end of the day, we got it done," she wrote in her book.

Kristi Noem might have landed herself in a lawsuit because of her teeth in 2024, but that was hardly the first time she weathered controversy. Noem wants to be remembered as someone who put her money where her mouth is. She sure did that during her tenure as South Dakota governor during the COVID-19 pandemic. Noem ignored the recommended guidelines to keep the spread at bay — she didn't impose any mask mandates or lockdowns and later accused politicians who did so of lacking grit. "South Dakota did not do any of those (measures). We didn't mandate. We trusted our people and it told them that personal responsibility was the best answer," Noem said during the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (via CNN). Noem claimed that her hands-off approach worked wonders and curbed the spread of the virus. Yet, she faced intense scrutiny after South Dakota became the 10th most infected state.

The controversy surrounding her approach to the pandemic was nothing new. During her time in Congress, Noem learned how to stand up for what she believed in and grew a thick skin in the process, a skill that likely contributed to her ability to confidently ignore the safety measures medical experts were urging lawmakers to impose on their states in 2020. As a congresswoman, Noem notably took on then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor during a House meeting to get a bill passed. Noem didn't mince words, so much so that Cantor reprimanded her privately afterward. In her book, "Not My First Rodeo," Noem indicated that getting a talking-to from Cantor in the aftermath only reassured her that she did her job well.

Kristi Noem loves the great outdoors, but juggling her family responsibilities with her role in Congress left her with little time to indulge in nature. So she decided to leave Congress and run for South Dakota's governor in 2016. "Even though I still am in meetings a good bit of the day, I do get the chance to travel the state and spend more time outdoors," Noem told Elysian about her decision.

In March 2024, Noem published a column about the importance of protecting nature in the South Dakota State News, recalling how she spent most of her childhood outside. Noem was calling on her constituents to protect the habitats of wild animals in order to maintain sustainable hunting practices, touting her Nest Predator Bounty Program, which encourages locals to hunt animals that threaten the state's pheasant population. Ironically, Noem cares about preserving the pheasants so they can be hunted by humans instead. In October 2024, she posted several pictures of herself hunting pheasants to Instagram. "Pheasant hunting is about enjoying our outdoors with family and old friends — and making new ones, too," she wrote. "Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Governor's Hunt this weekend!"

Kristi Noem has made it clear that she's not afraid of anything, except aging, that is. Noem's most obvious attempts to hide her true age hint that she might feel self-conscious about her appearance, and one can't really blame her, given that all the female members of Donald Trump's team look vastly different in throwback photos from before they joined Trump's inner circle. Noem can be counted among those women. Aside from paying the dentist a visit to ensure her pearly whites are as flawless as can be, Noem's drastic MAGA makeover had everyone wondering whether she got plastic surgery.

There were whispers that Donald Trump was going to float Noem for vice president as he geared up to take back the White House in 2024, and the prospect of being Trump's second appeared to motivate Noem to adopt an appearance now commonly referred to as "Mar-a-Lago face." As Republican strategist Ron Bonjean told The New York Times, "It's all about her appeal to an audience of one ... She is showing [Trump] she works well in front of the camera, that she has that star power he wants onstage with him, while fitting into the mode of women in the Trump universe."

Indeed, one only has to look at the stark difference between the Noem that was on horseback on the cover of her first book and the version of her on her 2024 tome "No Going Back." Bonjean noted that Noem had the Trump look down pat. "She practically looks like a member of the Trump family. Maybe a cousin," he told The Times. Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford noted that Noem's physical transformation signals her eagerness to please Trump.

Kristi Noem might not have gotten that VP nomination she hoped for, but Donald Trump still rewarded her for her efforts to look the part. Shortly after he won the 2024 election, Trump announced that he was nominating Noem for the position of secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

"I have known Kristi for years ... She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again," Trump wrote in his statement. Noem happily accepted. "I am honored and humbled that President Donald J. Trump has selected me to be the Secretary of Homeland Security," she said in a statement of her own. The Senate confirmed Noem as the new DHS secretary in January 2025, and she has been the face of Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration since. This might explain why Noem's been channeling Kimberly Guilfoyle where her appearance is concerned since she stepped into her White House job.

Noem's face has continued to undergo a transformation, looking increasingly unnatural as she appeared in ad campaigns promoting the Trump administration's deportation efforts. These campaigns have cost taxpayers around $200 million. While attending the Conservative Political Action Conference's Ronald Reagan dinner in February 2025, Noem said Trump told her he wanted her to star in the ads. "[He told me], 'I want you to do [ads] for the border,'" Noem said (via Rolling Stone), adding that Trump also told her, "I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads ... but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border." Noem was happy to comply; after all, she had the face for it.