Actor Chad Michael Murray, 44, faced rumors of plastic surgery after fans compared his current look with a resurfaced yearbook photo.
Speculation began swirling about the former teen heartthrob, famous for his roles in Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill, after an old photo of the actor circulated on X.
Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray in “One Tree Hill.”
People noted the actor was “unrecognizable” in the younger photo because of his nose, with many concluding he must have had a nose job.
“This guy looks nothing like him. I’m really confused,” one social media user wrote under a post of Murray’s yearbook picture.
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Many agreed that the former teen heartthrob appeared drastically different in his younger years.
“Wait. This is crazy, his whole face changed because of his nose,” one person wrote.
Another added, “You could have given me 100 guesses, and I still wouldn’t have said Chad Michael Murray—he looks so different.”
Despite the online speculation surfacing now, Murray has not hidden the fact that he underwent corrective nose surgery in his teens.
Fans thought that Chad Michael Murray was unrecognizable in a picture of him in his teens.
Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images
”I got jumped in a Burger King when I was 18 and had my nose put on the other side of my face,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2004. “It was three guys—what the hell was I supposed to do?”
Murray claimed his doctors did not even take X-ray photos of his nose, and that they simply “reset” it with surgery.
“It wasn’t a nose job—I hate the fact that people say it was a nose job!” he said.
Chad Michael Murray at the premiere for the film “Freakier Friday”, in Los Angeles in 2025.
In 2025, he brought his nose into the conversation during an interview with Newsweek, saying the corrective surgery left him with an insecurity.
“I don’t like my nose because it’s not my nose,” he recalled thinking when he was in his twenties.
Lindsay Lohan and Chad Michael Murray in Freaky Friday in 2003.
He also admitted to feeling insecure about his smile and teeth.
“You’re uncomfortable in your skin. And I think it’s not just if you’re an actor, it’s everybody,” he said, adding that things got easier when he reached his thirties.
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