Sitcom Stars Who Don't Look Anything Like They Used To

Many of yesterday's most beloved and watched sitcom stars no longer look like themselves. For a variety of reasons, these 10 actors and actresses have either tinkered with their faces, fallen on hard times, dabbled in drugs, dropped a massive amount of weight, or in a few cases, transformed into stud muffins. No matter the reason, all of these TV veterans will make you do a double take in disbelief. From Courteney Cox to John Goodman, see which stars fit the bill.

Over the years, Courteney Cox has transformed herself from the lovable quirky brunette on Friends to a woman few actually recognize. This 52-year-old's changing looks have less to do with aging under the spotlight and more to do with desperate attempts to remain youthful and relevant.

She dished on her decisions to get plastic surgery during a 2016 episode of Running Wild. "I feel lucky. I don't feel burdened by it. I mean, people can be pretty mean, though, now that there's all this social media," she told Bear Grylls, via Us Weekly. "The comments ... if I ever want to feel really bad about myself, I just click on one of those ... comment sections."

Then the other shoe dropped. "I think there's a pressure to maintain [your looks], not just because of fame, but just, you know, being a woman in this business. Getting older has not been ... I don't think it's the easiest thing," she added. "I think I was trying to keep up with getting older, trying to chase that ... it's something you can't keep up with."

She even recalls looking at photos of herself in horror of her own transformation saying, "Sometimes you find yourself trying and then you look at a picture of yourself and go, 'Oh, God.' Like, you look horrible." In all, Cox isn't proud of how she's evolved since landing in the spotlight some 20 years ago. "I have done things that I regret, and luckily they're things that dissolve and go away," she sadly confessed. "So, um, that's good, because it's not always been my best look."

America fell in love with Lark Voorhies when she played the lovable Lisa Turtle in the '80s sitcom Saved By the Bell. Her style, sassy way of addressing drama and stunning good looks made her the apple of everyone's eye. People were surely betting Voorhies would have a successful career in Hollywood.

But when Voorhies emerged nearly 20 years later, she looked completely different. Her trademark tresses were replaced with a lengthy weave and her beautiful skin was covered in lots of makeup. But it seems her changing looks may come from two different issues — her battle with lupus and an alleged mental disorder.

Talking about her battle with lupus, Voorhies, 42, claimed she'll never surrender. "You came uninvited like the thief you are," she posted to social media in 2015, via Us Weekly. "You invaded my body and my life silently and you have no mercy. You have stolen my life's work, my health, my vision of myself." Voorhies says she's not defined by this terrible illness and that lupus will "never touch without my permission, my soul. I am God's child and you can never take from what I refuse to give."

Her mother, Tricia Holloway, publicly claimed her daughter suffers from bipolar disorder. Voorhies denies it all saying in a separate post, "I in no way suffer from any sort of mental health issues. My oversensitive, tenderhearted and concerned mother has made some incorrect and worrisome statements regarding my mental health status that were said and stated at times that were convenient for her..."

There was no denying the cute factor Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen brought to Full House in the '80s. Although they split the role of Michelle Tanner, each actress lit up the screen with their magnetic smiles. Back then, it was almost impossible to tell them apart from each other. As they progressed into young women, the girls kept their cute smiles and bubbly personalities.

Now, at the age of 30, they're nothing like their younger selves. They've traded in their blonde hair for darker hues and traded in their Kodak smiles for red-carpet smirks and duck lips. At age 30, the women have virtually abandoned Hollywood, an industry that made them insanely rich, in favor of the fashion world. In 2006, they established The Row, an upscale trendy clothing company that sells clothing, eyewear, handbags and footwear.

But it wasn't just aging that transformed the twins' looks. It was also their poor lifestyle habits — mainly cigarettes. According to the Daily Mail, the ladies are routinely spotted on smoke breaks wherever they are working. And Page Six reports that when Mary Kate tied the knot to much older beau, Olivier Sarkozy, in 2015, the lovebirds had "bowls and bowls filled with cigarettes, and everyone smoked the whole night," an insider said.

It's no secret that smoking will age and weather a person's youthful skin in no time, and these girls are proof.

Courteney Cox isn't the only "Friend" people might not recognize today. Matthew Perry, who played the quirky and funny Chandler Bing, has aged tremendously over the years. No he didn't fiddle with his face, but rather a life-long addiction to drugs stole his youthful glow and handsome looks.

As he detailed to the Hollywood Reporter in 2015, he's endured decade's worth of Vicodin and alcohol problems. "You can't have a drug problem for 30 years and then expect it to be solved in 28 days," he said. "Getting sober is a really hard thing to do." He infamously became addicted to Vicodin after a terrible jet-ski accident in 1997, reports People (via E! News). The star was already a heavy drinker before the accident added drugs to the mix.

Perry, now 47, has been to rehab twice and is now dedicating his life to helping others fight their addictions. He's also joined forces with Phoenix House, a California-based treatment center, to help those who need it. Years prior, he opened up to People about his troubles saying, "I couldn't stop. Eventually things got so bad that I couldn't hide it, and then everybody knew."

"I'm a pretty private person, but I was on a TV show that 30 million people were watching, so people knew," Perry added in the Hollywood Reporter interview. "It was so public what was happening to me."

But years of wear and tear have not only affected his looks, but his mind. During a 2016 BBC Radio 2 interview, Perry confessed to not remembering three years of Friends. When asked what is his least favorite episode, Perry simply said, "I think the answer is I don't remember three years of it.... So none of those... somewhere between season three and six."

Roseanne Barr was one of America's most fierce and sassy TV moms from the late '80s and early '90s. And as the opening credits of Roseanne suggested during the last couple years of the show, she never stopped changing.

Sure the 64 year old has been every color between blonde, red and brunette — she's also been every size on the scale. According to the Huffington Post UK, Barr has undergone a number of surgeries to look her best, including a tummy tuck and breast reduction. After reaching 320 pounds in 1998, Barr underwent gastric bypass surgery. "I had my entire digestive system removed, so I should look thinner," she quipped in an interview.

Despite looking good entering the new millennium, Barr's health had begun to fail by 2015. The comedienne was spotted wearing dark sunglasses at events suggesting she's got eyesight issues. "I have macular degeneration and glaucoma, so it's good for me because I have pressure in my eyes," she told The Daily Beast about smoking weeding to help her pain. "It's a good medicine for a lot of things." Doctors have said she will likely go blind, but she didn't have a time frame saying, "My vision is closing in now. It's something weird. But there are other weird things. That one's harsh, 'cause I read a lot, and then I thought, 'Well, I guess I could hire somebody to read for me and read to me.' But I like words and I like looking. You do what you have to do. I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible—y'know, living it up. My dad had it, too."

John Goodman was the big burly Dan Conner in Roseanne, alongside co-star Roseanne Barr. For years, audiences saw this massive man become a tender-loving dad and husband. But as time passed, Goodman's weight began to cause problems until he decided to drop 100 pounds for good.

"I just stopped eating all the time," he dished to ABC News in 2016. "I'd have a handful of food and it'd go to my mouth. I was just eating all the time. I was just eating alcoholically. In the old days, I would take three months out, lose 60 or 70 pounds, and then reward myself with a 6-pack of bud or whatever and just go back to my old habits. Then this time I wanted to do it slowly, move, exercise. I'm getting to the age where I can't afford to sit still anymore. And it gives me the energy to work, 'cause work is very draining."

As the 64-year-old notes, he was motivated by his own lack of enthusiasm to look at himself. "I just got tired, sick and tired of looking at myself. You're shaving in the mirror and you don't want to look at yourself. It gets dangerous," he bravely said.

His battles have also included alcohol, which he learned to kick. "I think you're trying to fill a hole that can't be filled unless it's filled with goodness, some kind of spirituality, not saying religion," Goodman said. "But just a belief in something higher than yourself, a purpose. But instead of filling it with booze or cocaine or food, you just acknowledge that it's there. You can't fill it. And you go on and live with it."

Jaleel White went from geek to hunk over the years. The 40-year-old actor starred in Family Matters from 1989 to 1998. He played the iconic yet dorky Steve Urkle, whose popular catchphrase was "Did I do that?"

When he re-emerged in the public eye again, he shocked everyone with his handsome appearance. He joined Dancing with the Stars in 2012 — proving he was no longer that skinny nerd, but a handsome man with a great set of abs.

He talked about how Family Matters stopped him from growing into a good looking man — effectively leaving everyone's last image of him in suspenders. "The fact is that I was maturing. I knew physically I had made certain sacrifices to keep that property alive that just couldn't be made anymore," White told Vanity Fair noting he was the highest-paid black kid in TV history. "I wasn't changing my hair; I was staying out of the gym. To be honest, I was retarding my own growth as a man in order to maintain the authenticity to what I thought that character should be."

Since his DWTS showdown, in which he came in seventh place, he's experienced a consistent uptick in acting work. He's done single-episode appearances in Hawaii Five-O, Survivor's Remorse, Atlanta and more. According to his IMDb resume, he's got six projects in the works for 2017 already.

Hollywood clearly wants more of this hunky guy.

Drew Carey was Hollywood's go-to comedian for years. He played the title character of The Drew Carey Show from 1995 to 2004. And while his jokes were unforgettable, his round appearance was also much of the draw.

Carey, 58, began to take his weight and eating habits seriously in 2010. "I'm eating better, taking better care of myself," he told Success in 2015. "When I was doing [The Drew Carey Show], I was eating a lot of garbage, I was drinking a lot, so I had a lot of mood swings. I had diabetes."

Through patience and steady work, he dropped nearly 100 pounds from his frame. The weight loss transformation made Carey virtually unrecognizable. Beyond his health, he was pushed to become a better person because of his son Connor. "I had to change my whole belief system," he said. "It wasn't like, 'Eat this for 90 days and lose 20 pounds.' It was like: 'Eat like this for the rest of your life.' I'm not a maniac about it..."

In his journey to a better self, Carey also gave up booze, saying, "I'm not an alcoholic, but I used to drink a lot." He tested the waters with drinking on a trip to Germany in which he chose to get smashed. "I didn't like being drunk, didn't like the after-effects because I can't think," he said. "I didn't enjoy it, so I probably won't ever do it again."

As the host of The Price is Right, Carey has a daily platform to flaunt his disappearing frame.

After Raven-Symone ended her run on the hit Disney series That's So Raven, she went through a massive transformation. Sure, she has grown up in the spotlight, but Raven certainly took on a raw, unfiltered image once the show ended in 2007.

The 31-year-old child star, whose big break was on The Cosby Show, became boisterous with her opinions and flamboyant in her appearance. By the time 2012 arrived, Raven found herself at the roundtable of The View. Not only did her comments about race and other hot topics draw criticism, so did her ever-changing hairstyles.

Beyond the immediate, fans may have noticed she slimmed down considerably since her Disney days. In fact, she told People she shed a total of 70 pounds. And the process to getting healthy wasn't easy, she revealed. Raven credits much of her new body to 30-minute workouts no less than four times a week and cooking at home.

Everybody remembers Tahj Mowry, who played the genius child T. J. Henderson in Smart Guy. And even before then, TV watchers came to know him as Michelle Tanner's best buddy Teddy on Full House. But today, Mowry, 30, has shed that cookie-cutter good-boy image and is now a fine piece of man with a five o'clock shadow and bulging muscles.

Now that he's grown up, it may be hard to recognize him on the long-running series Baby Daddy. A quick glance at his social media proves he's not like so many other child stars who fell into the gutter. He credits his family from keeping him on a good path to success. "I think because of how I grew up, you know, being tutored and then also being able to stay in public school, in sports with my friends, that made me more down-to-earth for sure," Mowry told Oprah Winfrey's Where Are They Now? series. "I've always wanted to [act]. My parents weren't forcing me, or they weren't stage parents. They saw talent in me and were like, 'Alright, we're going to guide you this way.'"

Amanda Bynes went from Nickelodeon darling to troubled star in just a matter of years. As the star of All That and The Amanda Show, it was almost certain her career would explode to the likes of Lindsay Lohan.

Things came to a tragic halt after she was busted for driving under the influence in April 2012, reported MTV. From there, things plummeted for Bynes. In September 2012, TMZ published photos of Bynes driving around Los Angeles smoking what looked to be a marijuana pipe. In the coming year, she would openly discuss her eating disorder, according to MTV.

By the summer of 2013, Bynes was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold after she allegedly started a fire in a random driveway in Los Angeles, adds the music site. In 2015, a judge extended her parents conservatorship in an effort to protect Bynes from herself, reports People.

Since then, and about a dozen different looks later, things have finally began to even out for Bynes who enrolled at Los Angeles' Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. "She is doing great," her attorney told People near her 30th birthday in 2016. "She is happy and healthy and excited about the future."