News Anchors Who Are Barely Recognizable Makeup-Free

Before the airbrushed aesthetic became ubiquitous on social media, it was already popping up on television, where news anchors were being polished and primped until their looks were more pageant princess than business professional. Attempting to achieve this level of preternatural perfection can cause absolute cosmetic chaos behind the scenes at major broadcast news organizations as anchors prepare to put their best faces forward while facing the teleprompter. So, who can blame them for wanting to tone things down during their downtime?

Of the atmosphere when it's hair and makeup time at CNBC, professional makeup artist Maria Licari told the New York Post, "Every commercial break, we're on set. There's hairspray flying around, powders. It's a constant, hands-on situation to make everyone look good." The advent of HD put even more pressure on beauty pros working in the news biz to perfect their art, but it's not just unforgiving screen clarity and harsh lighting that make the on-air talent uncomfortable about sporting toned-down beauty looks. "If all of a sudden I'm in a ponytail with no makeup, I think that could be as distracting as wearing too much," CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang told Allure.

However, some big names in the news industry have defied TV's demanding beauty standards by going makeup-free on their shows. They've also spilled some secrets about how they achieve their glam looks.

In 2017, "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski was feuding with Donald Trump when he tweeted about an encounter he claimed they had. "She was bleeding badly from a face-lift," he wrote. Brzezinski has always been outspoken about the beauty standards she's expected to live up to in her industry, and she responded to Trump's unpresidential behavior by revealing that she did have some work done. However, it wasn't on her face. She told Vanity Fair she underwent a neck-tightening procedure, and her husband and co-host, Joe Scarborough, recalled how Trump was so impressed that he pleaded with Brzezinski to share her doctor's identity.

Brzezinski had previously removed her makeup onstage at the 2014 Women in the World conference. Per Huffpost, she told the audience she's so unrecognizable without makeup that she once wasn't allowed to enter CBS' studio when she was going au naturel. Her fans got the chance to discover if they shared this sentiment in 2019 when she gave them an inside look at how her makeup artist, Wilbert Ramos, preps her for "Morning Joe."

While sipping on her Starbucks in a BTS video for MSNBC, a fresh-faced Brzezinski notes that her blond eyebrows are almost invisible without makeup. "I feel like you literally draw eyebrows on me," she tells Ramos. According to the makeup artist, he enhances her eyebrows with Milani brow powder before using Tarte's Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Pencil in taupe to make them pop even more. On her skin, he uses Giorgio Armani's Luminous Silk Foundation.

After Alicia Keys announced that she was ditching makeup in 2016, Tamron Hall was inspired to do the same — on national television, no less. Hall was co-hosting "Today" when Keys appeared on the show to spread her uplifting message about embracing one's natural beauty. The singer even helped Hall wipe her makeup off, revealing the journalist's glowing skin underneath the glam.

While discussing how freeing it can feel to go makeup-free, Hall revealed that she misses her signature bling far more than cosmetics when she excludes it from her look. "My earrings are my crutch. I can't live without my earrings," she confessed.

Hall proved how comfortable she is appearing on camera without makeup again in February 2024 when she shared a GRWM video on TikTok. She revealed that one secret behind her silky smooth, radiant complexion is using a mask daily. The one she applied in her video was Dr. Barbara Sturm's Clarifying Mask, but she said the Clear Skin Probiotic Masque by Eminence is another favorite. Hall also revealed the main beauty concerns that she uses makeup to disguise: dark undereye circles and thin eyebrows. "I'm a lot of things, but I've never professed to be fantastic at applying my own makeup," she added. However, she did do her own makeup during her time on "Today."

Makeup helped bring MSNBC anchor Katy Tur and her fellow news host husband, Tony Dokoupil, together when they both worked at NBC. "He sauntered in to take off his makeup, you know, how all great romances blossom," Tur quipped to Vogue. The meet-cute didn't endear cosmetics to her. In a 2018 Glamour essay, she recalled how she learned early on that she would have to adopt an exhaustive beauty routine to get work in her chosen industry. However, she wasn't big on the News Anchor Barbie aesthetic. "For so long there was an expectation of how you're supposed to look when you walk into any broadcast makeup room, where makeup artists would Fox-ify — as in Fox News — any woman by adding fake lashes, bright lipstick, and lots of eyeshadow, and perfectly coiffing her hair," she wrote.

Tur was grateful when news organizations started becoming more lax with their beauty expectations, revealing that she wasn't even bothering to wax her eyebrows anymore. She was also forgoing the contour and opting for understated eye makeup — no supersized falsies and excessive eyeshadow for her. "When I look in the mirror, or the monitor, I want to see the Katy Tur that I've known for 34 years of my life, not some made-up version of myself," she explained.

Tur sometimes skips makeup altogether on social media. In a 2021 Instagram snapshot, she was pictured sporting a wide grin as she kicked off Mother's Day by relaxing in bed.

Back when she worked at Fox News, where the makeup artists are up to their elbows in bronzer and false lashes, the mirror shine of Megyn Kelly's gleaming lip gloss mesmerized one beauty pro. "I see it sparkling in high definition, and it's really cool. Even though it's strange, I'm entranced," makeup artist Meli Pennington told The Atlantic. However, a peer in her industry, Kathy Pomerantz, explained why gloss is a bad idea for news hosts. "That's all you can focus on when you look at the anchor's face ... I call them dancing lips," she told Allure. 

For a 2014 Facebook photo, Kelly let her lips be wallflowers. She revealed that fans were seeing her unvarnished self by captioning it, "The natural me!"

However, it takes work to "werk" the au naturel look. During an April 2024 episode of "The Megyn Kelly Show," the eponymous host revealed which cosmetic procedures she relies on to refresh her face and encouraged her viewers to try them. "Get the lasers, get the Botox ... I don't believe in the filler. ... This is what I do, and it allows you to age but age well, and you don't look weird and desperate," she said.

Kelly's beauty revelation came a month after she shamed "The Boys" actor Erin Moriarty for looking unrecognizable in a photo. Kelly also criticized CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan's makeup during the vice-presidential debate, so she might be the only one who can live up to her exacting beauty standards.

In 2024, longtime "CBS This Morning" host Gayle King agreed to appear on "The Drew Barrymore Show" without a stitch of makeup on. However, while speaking to Drew Barrymore and her fellow bare-faced guests, Valerie Bertinelli and Gillian Anderson, King confessed to almost keeping her fake eyelashes on. She also said that sometimes people on the street will recognize her voice but not her face when she's going about her day-to-day activities without her immaculate television veneer. "They'll say, 'Are you in disguise?' I go, 'No, this is my face,'" she said of the awkward encounters.

King is famously besties with media queen Oprah Winfrey, and she'll occasionally get makeup advice from her forthright friend. In a 2015 Instagram post, she recounted how Winfrey called her to complain about the brightness level of her lipstick on "CBS This Morning." Winfrey asked King to pass this critique on to her makeup artist, but there was a teensy problem. "I said proudly, 'I did that MYSELF,'" King recalled. "Dead silence on the line."

While Winfrey isn't a fan of fiery red lipstick on her friend, she did approve of a beauty product King's makeup artist, RaeDawn, used while getting her all glammed up for her 2024 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover shoot. RaeDawn told Page Six that King's beach-ready glow was courtesy of the Balaeyon Dew Revive Stick, which has been included on one of Winfrey's annual lists of her favorite things. "I use it on her face to prep her skin. That's our morning ritual," said the beauty professional.

Before her 2024 departure from the show, Norah O'Donnell reportedly had some messy moments while hosting "CBS Evening News," one of which involved her makeup. "There was an incident last year in the studio where she ranted about how her bronzer was wrong," a source spilled to the New York Post in 2022. But O'Donnell has a valid reason for wanting to achieve a natural-looking, sun-kissed glow without the sun's help. In 2016, she was diagnosed with melanoma. Of her reaction to learning that she had skin cancer, she told InStyle, "I started to tear up and cry in the middle of the Bloomingdales."

Luckily, O'Donnell's dermatologist noticed the suspect mole on her back early, so after having it removed, she is now cancer-free. She's also aware of the likely culprit behind her health scare: a bad beauty habit she adopted when she was younger. "I am fair-skinned, I thought, 'Well if I go tan in a tanning bed then I won't be as sunburned when I go outside,' which is false — that is a misconception," she said.

Now, O'Donnell regrets her fake-bake folly and embraces her naturally pale complexion when she isn't sporting her camera-ready contour. And when she's spending time outdoors without makeup on, as she appears to be doing in the above-left photo, you can bet she has something else slathered on her face: sunscreen.

Hoda Kotb doesn't mind letting fans see what she looks like in the morning before she sits down in her chair on "The Today Show." The 2021 Instagram snapshot above was taken during an early morning in Tokyo, where she was helping NBC cover the Summer Olympics.

Kotb and her co-hosts also appeared on "Today" without makeup in 2014. She told viewers that leaving her skin untouched made her feel "naked," and she shared her go-to beauty product for banishing the sensation of being just a bit too bare to face the world. "I like to have lipstick on," she said (via the Daily Mail). "If I have nothing on but lipstick, I feel better." 

In a 2024 "Faves & Finds" segment on "Today," she revealed that one of her favorite lip color products is Pat McGrath Labs Divine Cream Blush: Legendary Glow Color Balm. It can be used to brighten up a pout or perk up pale cheeks, with Kotb saying that she likes how it makes her look "sun-kissed." As for how she keeps her skin looking so flawless that she can swipe on some lipstick and appear totally put together, Kotb is a fan of the Elizabeth Arden Advanced Ceramide Capsules. She told Us Weekly, "It feels like putting silk on your face." Kotb loves coconut oil as well, revealing in a Forbes interview that it's a must-have skincare product when she travels.

Like her "Today" co-host Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie is completely comfortable giving the world a glimpse behind her glam. However, some fans were surprised when she didn't apply any makeup before posing for her first photos with her newborn daughter, Vale, in 2014. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but it was unexpected for Guthrie. "Honestly, it didn't even cross my mind to have fixed-up hair and makeup. ... Those pics were taken in the hospital room a few hours after she was born, so the only makeup I'm wearing is joy!!" she said.

Guthrie also doesn't bother with makeup when she travels, as she revealed in a 2015 Instagram photo taken during a flight to Australia. To keep her skin refreshed during such trips, she told Forbes that she spritzes with Evian Facial Spray. "It makes you feel like you've had a bath when you haven't," she said. For a deeper clean, she uses Clinique Take The Day Off Micellar Cleansing Makeup Remover Wipes. They also come in handy when you're experimenting with makeup. "I've been trying to perfect the smokey eye for about a decade now," Guthrie confessed in a 2018 "Today" interview.

By going makeup-free sometimes, the "Princesses Wear Pants" author is setting a good example for her two kids about not giving in to pressure to look a certain way. "Many women — certainly me — look in the mirror and see where we fall short," she told Refinery29. "I want to protect my kids from that. And that starts with me."

Before Dana Perino joined the roundtable on "The Five," she served as White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration. Ahead of taking on the gig full-time, she got a taste of the work when she temporarily filled in for then-press secretary Tony Snow. "I didn't think I was going to throw up, but I've never worn that much makeup in my life," she told The Denver Post.

When Perino started working at Fox News, she found that she was still expected to pile on the beauty products. Gabriel Sherman, the author of "The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — and Divided a Country," told The Atlantic that the high-glam look sported by the network's female reporters was likely the brainchild of late Fox News chairman Roger Ailes — and it didn't impress some industry professionals. "I mean, frankly, to me, those smart women on Fox look like bimbos," one makeup artist told Allure.

However, Perino appreciates the work her glam squad does. "We are so incredibly blessed here at FOX. They [hair and makeup pros] do so much better than I ever could," she told Advisors Magazine. And when she doesn't want people to scrutinize her makeup mask, she can always wipe off all that war paint and enjoy a judgment-free zone at home, as she's doing in the Facebook pic above.

Before her affair with co-host T.J. Holmes got Amy Robach fired from "Good Morning America" in 2023, she was forced to take some downtime. In a 2022 Instagram post, Robach revealed that she had COVID-19 but was on the mend. She appeared upbeat in a fresh-faced photo and shared that she felt well enough to resume running outdoors (in the snow, no less).

Holmes and Robach later launched a podcast, "Amy & T.J." In one episode, they discussed the cosmetic treatments Robach uses to look so unblemished without cosmetics. Robach revealed that she's a Botox devotee and once got a vampire facial, a bizarre beauty treatment that Kim Kardashian helped popularize. Robach was told it would cause swelling that would only last for a few hours, but it lingered for days. According to T.J., her appearance affected their nighttime routine. "I was big spoon for those three days," he quipped. "There was no face-to-face cuddling." 

Robach also recalled getting a collagen-boosting treatment that left her severely bruised. "Apparently, that procedure is just, you go in, and the doctor punches you in the face repeatedly," T.J. joked. He didn't notice any change in Robach's appearance after she healed, but she said, "That's the way I want it to be. I don't want to look different."

According to Jenna Bush Hager, her daughter Mila once greeted her with a shady comment about her appearance. During a 2022 episode of "Today with Hoda & Jenna," she recalled Mila telling her, "You're right, mom. ... You do look better in makeup." This left Hager bemused, as she couldn't recall saying any such thing to her little girl.

Despite getting some additional unsolicited beauty advice from Mila to cover up some red spots on her cheeks before going out to lunch, Hager has allowed her fans to see her with a bare face. When she was running late for work one day, she decided to film an impromptu GRWM video for her TikTok followers. It began in her car, where her face was a clean slate. By the time she got to the studio, her hair and makeup team were left with just 10 minutes to get her camera-ready. The results were pretty impressive.

If you ever wondered where the subtle luminosity of Hager's skin comes from, in another video, her makeup artist revealed that she preps Hager's skin with The Ordinary Rose Hip Seed Oil. Jenna is also a big fan of ILIA Super Serum Skin Tint SPF 40, which is a multi-faceted product that sounds like something great to have on hand when she's running late. "I'll put this on after I wash ... and that's my makeup," she said on "Today."