The Transformation Of Donald Trump's Face Can't Go Unnoticed

Donald Trump has long harbored ambitions to be on Time magazine's cover and, in October 2025, he finally got his wish. But as they say, be careful what you wish for. "Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", the two-time president wrote on Truth Social (via the Guardian). "They 'disappeared' my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one," he continued. "Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out." But it wasn't just the Commander-in-Chief who was left unimpressed. The public was too. "Thanks for the awesome photo of Trump's nostrils. I could have taken a better picture with my flip phone," wrote one sarcastic user on X. 

But was it a bad picture or was Trump just aging? Although not helped by the harsh dentist chair-esque lighting, his sagging skin, wrinkles, and leathery complexion are just what happens to your body as it ages. The prominence of what has un-lovingly been referred to on X as his "neck labia" in the center of the frame doesn't make him look any younger either.

So, from his childhood to career as a property mogul to POTUS, let's take a look at just how much Trump's much-talked-about face has changed over the years.

In childhood, Trump's face was far from the tanned wrinkle-ridden visage that became a fixture on television and at political rallies. Instead, as an adolescent, he looked as pale as a sheet. You could be forgiven for thinking this was someone else. That's how un-Trump Trump looked back then. The bronzed look is so him that, in 2024, we wanted to see Trump without his disastrous tan, so we gave him his real skin tone back. 

This cherubic Trump, pictured here for the 1964 New York Military Academy yearbook, was yet to be weathered by the worlds of business and politics alike. Here, he was distinctly wrink-less, tan-less, and fresh-faced. However, some of his facial features did stay the same. Notably, his bushy eyebrows, reminiscent of fellow New Yorker Martin Scorsese, have been a staple of Trump's mug throughout his life.

"When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same," Trump told CNN in 2014. "The temperament is not that different." However, his face did not remain the same, not by any stretch.

Before he entered the cut and thrust of politics, Donald Trump was a high-flying (literally and figuratively) property magnate. But he wasn't only in a different profession in the 20th century, he also had a different complexion. Instead, his face, in the '80s, was a whole lot less orange and a lot more youthful. But as the '90s rolled in, Trump was in his 40s, a time in life when aging happens dramatically and those wrinkles get bigger. Trump was no different, and his face had begun to look a little more wizened.

So, the turn of the century marked a new look for Trump. He entered his tanned era. Indeed, an early 2000s snap of Trump proves his strange orange tan has been around for ages. It also coincided with him becoming a new reality TV star via "The Apprentice," which he fronted between 2004 and 2015. After all, nothing says showbiz quite like a tan. He certainly looked like a new man in the new millennium.

With just over half a decade on "The Apprentice" under his belt, by 2010, Donald Trump looked positively orange. Although there have been times when Trump accidentally exposed his true skin tone by mistake, his tanned face was the look that came to define him. Eventually, Trump's bronzer obsession would go too far and start hurting our eyes, but more on that later.

While his tan has been described by a senior White House administrative official as the result of "good genes" (via The New York Times), there is a distinct difference between how his face looked at the start of the decade to 10 years in. The difference? The orange-ness of his skin had become more prominent. Trump's mother is from Scotland and his father was of German descent. Ah yes, that famous Scottish and German ... *checks notes* ... tan. One thing's for sure, he didn't catch any rays when he traveled to Scotland in October 2010 to collect an honorary degree at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University. His face looked more like the result of trips to Sephora than genetic heritage.

Whether it was a fried doughnut or a Cheeto, the ever-darkening ochre of Donald Trump's face was compared to anything and everything carrot-colored in the 2010s. Comedians used every opportunity to poke fun at the business mogul-cum-politician — Trump impressions on "SNL" were sure to bruise his fragile ego. His complexion had gone from a tasteful sun-kissed sheen at the start of the decade to one that resembled Pauly D from "Jersey Shore" by the end of it. Allegedly, as per The New York Times, even Trump himself was frustrated that his skin appeared too orange on television.

Indeed, Trump's tan has drastically evolved since 2016, and the comparisons are jarring. It's led many to speculate as to how he achieves the look. "I know exactly what he does to himself," Jason Kelly, a make-up artist who worked at the 2016 Republican National Convention, told Harper's Bazaar. "The tanning bed, the spray tan, he wears the goggles and you can see the hyper-pigmentation around his eyes." Dermatologist Dr. Tina Alster agreed, claiming his skin showed tell-tale signs of using self-tanner creams or sprays (via Rolling Stone).

But it wasn't just the tan transforming Trump's face as much as it was aging. By 2019, in his early 70s at that point, he had crow's feet around his eyes and wrinkles lining his forehead. He wasn't the only one, though. The Trump family's faces have also changed since he came down the escalator.

In 2020, the wind pushed Donald Trump's hair back, revealing a major tan line on his forehead. In the space between his hair and orange face was a distinctly pale strip along his hairline. Again, Trump was keen to distance himself from an unflattering photo. "More Fake News," he cried on X. "This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!"

⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ returns to the White House from Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by William Moon at the South Lawn of the White House on February 7, 2020 pic.twitter.com/n1a1Z93LrJ

— White House Photos (@photowhitehouse) February 7, 2020

In the previous decade, more often than not, Trump's signature facial tan had been applied more subtly and comprehensively. By 2020, in this photo, it was all a little too slapdash. The lack of professionalism in his late 2010s tan was attested to in 2019 by one of his ex-housekeepers. "Trump slathered on — two full containers [of Bronx Colors-brand face make-up], one half full," said the anonymous whistle-blower when speaking to The Washington Post. "Even if it meant the housekeepers had to regularly bring new shirts from the pro shop because of the rust-colored stains on the collars." To get a little inside baseball, Bronx Colors themselves identified Trump's signature shade as Orange BHC06. It's important to remember, this is a far cry from the more au naturel Trump of the late 20th century.

In 2023, Donald Trump made history as the first president to be arrested after serving office. But there was something else he was still serving: face. At Georgia's Fulton County Jail in August 2023, charged with illegally attempting to overturn the state's election results, he joined a list of MAGA politicians who have been arrested and had their mugshots taken.

It signaled a turning point for Trump, not just in his attitude, but in how he chose to make his face look. He wore a scowl, with a steely gaze and furrowed eyebrows. As one user on X put it, "I think he nailed it with this face. It's the 'I'm coming for you' type of look, mixed with something else, can't figure it out yet." Perhaps the something else was that "Trump's mugshot is giving blue steel," as another X user quipped.

Given the viral-ness of the photo, rather than, to use modern parlance, take the L, Trump made it a W. The photograph of Inmate No. P01135809 (as Trump was briefly known) became instantly iconic. Not long after the mugshot hit the web, his team released all manner of merch from beverage coolers to T-shirts, adorned with the photo and the words "Never Surrender." Gone was the face of a television personality. Here, Trump wore the look of a battle-hardened politician, and that wasn't the last time we'd see it.

If Trump's mugshot set the precedent for his new look, then he doubled down on it when he returned to office in 2025. Much like his mugshot, the portrait shows a menacing Trump with one eyebrow cocked as he looks fiercely down the camera. In comparison to the far warmer expression and lighting in his 2017 portrait, his 2025 headshot is brooding and much moodier. Looking at the portraits side by side, it's like the dramatic crossroads meme made manifest. "Nah they knew they was making him look like a super villain on purpose," wrote an X user. "He is on his revenge arc tho so it fits."

However, Trump's new White House portrait fails to hide his biggest insecurities. His face was far from youthful. Unlike in 2017, and perhaps not helped by the photo's high-contrast lighting, all the wear and tear on his face was accentuated: the wrinkles, the uneven skin tone, and the lines perma-etched into his forehead. But this is a man pushing 80 years old. That's old Father Time doing his thing.

At the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial in 2025, something about Donald Trump's face looked different. What was it? Well, in photos and videos from the service, the right side of his face seemed to be slanted down. The facial drooping Trump was exhibiting is a common stroke sign, and many online suspected this was exactly what happened to him. Indeed, the Trump family's silence on his health issues could mean they're more worried than we know.

"I'm not particularly into conspiracy theories but man it really looks like a stroke," wrote one user on X. "So this guy like 100% had a stroke right," penned another X user. Regardless, stroke or no stroke, Trump's face didn't look in the finest of fettle. More concerningly, these weren't the first photos and videos that sparked concern for Trump's health in 2025. Responding to the rumors, a White House spokesperson said stroke chatter was ridiculous (via Snopes). Since the memorial, Trump's face has looked sturdier and, of course, it has been on Time magazine. But we'll keep an eye on this one.