Unflattering Photos Of Donald Trump He Doesn't Want You To See

Presidential putdowns became a common occurrence during the MAGA era, but the "prune" insult that Donald Trump lobbed at Bruce Springsteen loses what little juice it has left when scrutinizing certain pics of the POTUS. And as close-up photos of Trump's greasy makeup prove, there is such a thing as looking over-hydrated. There are also several other issues that can make his pictures fall into the category of those he'd probably prefer for photogs to delete, from awkward angles to odd facial expressions.

The man himself broke down the anatomy of a bad Trump photo and exposed just how vain he is in a 2023 Truth Social post. He directed some friendly fire at "Fox & Friends," a talk show that usually manages to stay on his good side, by writing, "They purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big 'orange' one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they're not." Unfortunately for Trump, news organizations are spoiled for choice when it comes to unflattering photos of him.

We know the president hates windmills, but lights might be his biggest nemesis. Donald Trump insists that his carrot coloring comes from energy-efficient lightbulbs, and sometimes, stage lights do strange things to his appearance. At a 2026 rally, they highlighted his hair and the tip of his nose. With his bushy brows and lit-up bits, he could have been cosplaying as a marmalade-colored Cat in the MAGA Hat or a character from one of his favorite musicals, "Cats."

Would Donald Trump trade his favorite McDonald's order for a Krabby Patty? Unlikely, but he has discovered the secret formula for channeling one of the Krusty Krab's customers with his piscine pucker and those cartoonish white circles that widen his eyes. He's also looking rather orange and animated at this 2018 event for independent businesses (maybe Mr. Krabs was in the audience).

Donald Trump often has his mouth wide open in photos, so it's somewhat unnerving to see him with his lips pressed so tightly together that he's doing a reverse pucker. His tense expression during a 2018 meeting with the then-prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, also emphasized the dark discoloration around his mouth, and his face's rare lack of color made his undereye bags stand out.

If the president is cracking open a can of something, it's usually soda (Donald Trump even has a wild theory that his Diet Coke addiction is healthy). But stick a pipe in his mouth in this January 2025 photo, and he'd look like he was ready to gulp down an entire can of spinach to take on the press. You might also see a toddler who doesn't want to eat their greens making this same face, which was Trump's visceral reaction to being questioned by a reporter.

Why the president is puckering up and pointing at Mike Pence in this 2020 photo remains a mystery, as does why Donald Trump's tan disasters often feature lily-white undereye bags. His pout also stands out because it matches his tie, save for that upside-down Arc de Trump of parched white skin on his lower lip.

Did Donald Trump just spot two doppelgangers in the crowd at this 2020 conference? He does look weirdly freaked out here as he fuses the pointing Spider-Man meme with Donald Sutherland's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" end scene. Unfortunately, his dropped jaw and tight collar are accentuating his double chin, something he seems to be insecure about.

When Donald Trump skips the bronzer, he can look a little unbaked and unseasoned. His lipless grimace during this 2020 meeting with lawmakers is giving Pillsbury Doughboy — but he's clearly not lovin' whatever just came out of the oven. And if Trump is looking to get rid of those eye bags, he could always try the skincare version of a rolling pin: a jade roller.

In a 1988 BBC interview, comedian Barry Humphries chatted with Donald Trump and Ivana Trump as his Dame Edna persona. Edna predicted that Ivana would become first lady someday, but she was off by two Trump marriages. She also couldn't have predicted that Donald would someday sport winged white circles around his eyes reminiscent of her famous flashy glasses. But sadly, he clearly hasn't adopted Edna's skin and lip care routine.

Because he doesn't seem to have a great relationship with the written word, Donald Trump can't escape the rumors that he can't read. While he appears to be disproving them in this 2020 photo, that protruding lip says he'd rather be doing something else. Perhaps he was even caught reacting to the task with a frustrated "pfft!" — like a slacker student who had just been handed a homework assignment.

According to "Let Trump Be Trump," a book co-authored by Kristi Noem's rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump used to make Hope Hicks use a steamer on his pants while he had them on. He also chewed her out once when she didn't have the steamer on hand. Well, karma is the creases on Trump's lap at a GOP convention; Hicks was long gone by June 2021 when he was photographed with pants so wrinkled that the AP fact-checked claims that they were backwards, determining that they were not.

After Donald Trump was found guilty in his 2024 hush-money trial, he addressed the press, looking rather frazzled and disheveled. His hair was especially wild — it was a frizzy mess, and it looked like it had decided it wasn't cut out for prison and was trying to go on the lam. There was no need for man or mane to be concerned, as Trump's sentencing wasn't even a slap on the wrist. And so Trump and his crumbling bird's nest continued committing crimes against hair-manity.

Donald Trump really went to town with the blotchy brown bronzer to watch a SpaceX Starship launch in the fittingly named town of Brownsville, Texas. It kind of looks like he splashed his face with rocket fuel before taking his place beside a much lighter-complexioned Elon Musk.

He's filled a penthouse and the White House with gold, but Donald Trump still gets ridiculously giddy when he gets his hands on some bling. In 2025, his inner MAGA magpie came flapping out when a member of the Navy's football team presented him with a huge ring. He was so happy that he stuck his tongue out, and his unmitigated glee over something so superficial was really a bit much.

In 2025, the president ticked almost all the boxes for an unflattering Donald Trump photo while preparing to greet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House with what looked like a wail of agony. There was the bad bleach job, the wrinkled pants, the orange face, the halfhearted thumbs-up, and the weird thing he was doing with his lips. Trump also has a bad habit of accidentally exposing his true skin tone by holding up his unbronzed hands.

When Donald Trump golfs, he often forgoes his usual makeup routine. He also plops a hat on, causing his hair's crispy ends to stick out wildly. But while he was unvarnished for the 2025 ribbon-cutting ceremony for his new golf course in Scotland, the scissors he used had gold handles — so he couldn't help but admire them with a goofy grin plastered on his face.

If Trump were right about everything, why does he look so wrong here? In 2025, he appeared ready to star in "The Haunting of The People's House" while visiting the D.C. museum, looking downright ghostly. The scraggly brows, even whiter skin around his eyes, and open mouth dragged this low-energy look down to the lethargic level, while his contrasting bright red cap with comically large letters was hardly the height of fashion.

Donald Trump doesn't always do the best job hiding his emotions, as shown by this physical response to a question from a member of the media covering his 2025 trip to Tokyo. Toddlers on the verge of throwing tantrums make that same face when their moms won't buy them candy at the grocery store.

A Time magazine cover is usually something Donald Trump would brag about, but he hated this photo that the publication used in 2025. He filed a complaint on Truth Social, writing in part, "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." Either he thought the "M" was supposed to be a crown, or he was referencing that hair halo (but he's totes fine with being portrayed as a Christ-like figure).

Donald Trump might have given the press quite the jump scare by popping around the corner on Air Force One with those bright pink eyes and that wide-open, moist maw. Some of the makeup on his lips could have been used around his eyes instead, and while he's reportedly a Starburst fan, he needs to avoid working with a cosmetic color palette inspired by the red, pink, yellow, and orange candies.

It's difficult to discern what exactly Donald Trump is doing here. If this is supposed to be his impression of a turkey, it could definitely use some work; with his squarish head, squished-down neck, and wide (likely padded) shoulders, he looks more like Frankenstein's monster than Gobble, that fierce bird he's pardoning, who is showing him how to serve without being served on a silver platter.

Donald Trump's hair lost some of its height when he headed back to D.C. on Air Force One after the Thanksgiving holiday in 2025. He also didn't baste his face (perhaps because he was still recovering from that post-feasting food coma), and the inside of his lower lip was alarmingly red — could it be that he's gone all Bella Swan and developed a lip-biting habit due to stress? 

Remember the "McKayla Maroney is not impressed" face? The Olympic gymnast's annoyed facial expression was once such a big deal that even Barack Obama was doing it. But while Donald Trump's Obama envy might keep him up at night, he probably isn't pulling the face in this 2025 photo because he's trying to be like Barack. He looks like he's falling asleep in other photos from the same meeting, so maybe he was doing facial gymnastics to keep himself awake.

When he put his FIFA Peace Prize medal on himself, Donald Trump couldn't hide his bandaged hand. As he plucked the award from its case, social media users also observed that he looked a lot like a grinning Grinch absconding with all of Whoville's Christmas ribbons, wrappings, trimmings, and trappings. Perhaps it had something to do with how he somehow managed to raise his eyebrows and squint at the same time.

Was Donald Trump trying to do a pitch-perfect impression of the "downcast face with sweat" emoji during a 2025 meeting with tech leaders? Probably not, but his facial expression entered surreal territory when he squinted his eyes and forced his downturned mouth into the shape of a dark crescent moon.

If you didn't realize how wide the age gap between Donald Trump and Melania Trump is, let this December 2025 photo educate you. Melania looks as fresh as a daisy, and her smile is an appropriate facial expression for a holiday ball. Meanwhile, her husband looks a bit haggard and exhausted. Also, he's inexplicably making that odd mushroom shape with his open mouth — it's never a silent night when Donald is in the house.

Your guess is as good as any as to why Donald Trump appeared to be doing his best impression of a gopher at a 2025 rally in North Carolina. "Caddyshack" taught us that the rodents are the natural enemies of golfers, so maybe he took a break from blaming Joe Biden for the country's woes to complain about the critters.

While fielding phone calls from kids on Christmas Eve, it seems that a sweaty-nosed Donald Trump discovered his inner child; that's the face of a first grader who just learned that Santa is merely a myth. In Trump's case, he'd feel especially sad knowing that he wouldn't be getting Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize or even some of his beloved "clean" coal in his stocking after all.

Donald Trump and MAGA convert Lindsey Graham star in: "Fear and Loathing in Mar-a-Lago." Even though he doesn't drink, Trump looks like he's suffering from a hangover here with his moist nose, pink, puffy eyes, and queasy facial expression. He also appears to be shooting daggers at his former hater, who is all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while chattering away on Air Force One.

Did Marco Rubio slip a whoopee cushion in Donald Trump's chair during a January 2026 meeting with gas execs? Probably not, but Trump raised his unkempt eyebrows so high that they almost hit his hair ledge, so he was apparently surprised by something. The president also lived up to that toddler-in-chief epithet by contorting his mouth in an unpresidential manner.

What did this bottle of milk ever do to Donald Trump? Well, for one thing, it isn't in a milkshake. He also had to stay awake to discuss it during a 2026 meeting with dairy farmers, and based on his drooping eyelids, the last thing he needed to be thinking about was drifting off after sipping on a nice, soothing glass of warm milk.

After a 2026 Black History Month event, Donald Trump gave the press a thumbs-up while dipping his chin down and smiling. This made his neck vanish and gave him a cartoonish appearance — there was a little bit of the "Despicable Me" character Gru in his slouched posture. And Trump would certainly have a reason to smile like that if he had a horde of orange minions at his disposal.

Like Peter Sellers' iconic Dr. Strangelove, it appears that Donald Trump is suffering from alien hand syndrome here — he's looking at his upraised mitt as if it has a mind of its own. It's also impressive how far he's pulled down the corners of his mouth. It's as if he's concentrating hard on forcing those fingers into a fist so he can stop popping and locking and start doing his "Y.M.C.A." dance.

In his Truth Social rant about his bad Time magazine photo, Donald Trump wrote, "I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles." This image is a perfect example of why photographers should keep their lenses far above the belt. The flag waving in the background is imagery Trump would surely approve of, but it's doubtful he wanted to expose rarely seen parts of his presidential anatomy, including the bottom of his tongue and the hair inside his nasal cavity.

In March 2026, a sandpaper-skinned Donald Trump stopped to talk to the press before boarding Marine One to head to Mar-a-Lago, and his hair seemed determined to beat him there. A few wayward wisps did their best impression of the chopper in the background as Marco Rubio watched, possibly hoping that the combover would fully take off. When Trump ordered new, poorly fitting shoes for his cabinet, Rubio was among those who got shoe-shamed, so he had good reason to wish similar humiliation upon his boss.

Donald Trump had another unfortunate run-in with an event's lighting at the 2026 fundraising dinner for the National Republican Congressional Committee. The lights didn't just give him one glowing eye like a comic book villain; they lit up the spittle he was spewing as he spoke to the crowd. It was a lot of liquid, so it had to suck being stuck in the front row.