Inside The Plastic Surgery Gossip Surrounding Chelsea Clinton

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, has weathered ridicule over her appearance for most of her life. Chelsea was barely a pre-teen when Bill was elected to the first of his two terms as president, but her tender age did little to stop public figures from unfairly bashing her looks. While doing a media tour for her book, "Start Now! You Can Make a Difference," Chelsea spoke a little about the treatment she faced while living in the White House. "When my dad ran for president, I was made fun of a lot, generally for my appearance," Clinton once admitted, according to Daily Camera. "I had frizzy hair. I wore glasses sometimes and I had braces. It was quite mean and quite vicious."

Although the fixation about Chelsea's looks has waned a little in recent years, it's never completely vanished. Eventually, gossip about whether she'd had plastic surgery also cropped up from people in the media and Clinton family adversaries. For example, the New York Post ran a story in the early aughts speculating about whether or not the then-20-something had gotten a few nips and tucks. But although several cosmetic surgeons and beauty industry pros offered their opinions, none of them credited the young woman's updated appearance to surgery. Unfortunately for Chelsea, this wasn't the end of the plastic surgery gossip by a long shot. In fact, the gossip eventually blended with conspiracy. 

Over the years, Roger Stone, a long-time critic of the Clinton family, has repeatedly peddled the bonkers conspiracy that Chelsea's biological father was Webb Hubbell and that she resorted to cosmetic surgery to look less like him. "Now Chelsea, their daughter, who is, as I say in this book, [The Clintons' War on Women] actually the daughter of Webb Hubbell and Hillary Clinton," Stone said in 2016, notes Media Matters. Stone claimed that because Chelsea wanted to distance herself from Hubbell, she tweaked her appearance with cosmetic work. "What 18-year-old gets plastic surgery unless you're trying to, I don't know, thin out the lips and make you look less like your daddy," continued Stone.

However, this was far from the first or last time Stone spread these hurtful, unsubstantiated rumors about Chelsea. While speaking with The National Enquirer to promote his book, which contained similar accusations in greater detail, Stone dug even deeper into Chelsea's looks and her supposed plastic surgery. "The resemblance between Chelsea and Webb Hubbell is uncanny. Chelsea underwent plastic surgery not to look better but to conceal Hubbell is her REAL dad!" said Stone in 2015. As for why Stone cared one way or another about the Clinton family tree? "It's important to know who Chelsea's real father is because it proves the Clinton marriage is a dysfunctional sham," he continued.

Although Roger Stone claimed to the National Enquirer that his co-author brazenly broached this topic to Chelsea Clinton's face, she's never actually dignified the Webb Hubbell paternity rumors with a public response. But she has addressed the plastic surgery gossip in a different context. In 2018, Chelsea responded to conservative author Janie Johnson, who accused her of having chin surgery on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Hi Janie – 1) Never said that, which I imagine you know," tweeted Chelsea. "2) Since I was 11, people in public have said they think I'm ugly. I would never comment on relative beauty. It's gross. 3) My chin is the one I was born with, just 38 years later," she added.

While Chelsea obviously has no trouble defending herself against online haters, she still has reservations about subjecting her kids to the same environment. "I am fiercely protective of my children's privacy," said Chelsea about her disdain for modern social media during a panel for CBS in 2023 (via People). "They are the most important part of my life. I would never show a picture of their faces or our family's faces, and it would feel just weird to me to be on Instagram, a visual media, sharing the small moments of your life or big moments of your life," she continued. Chelsea also revealed that the harsh treatment she endured as a child helped prepare her for the social media era. "The online stuff, with all of its glory and gore, was just like a larger version of what my life had always been."