8 celebrities with scars and how they got them

It’s easy to assume the life of a celebrity is a perfect one, filled with glamour, riches, and the kind of success mere mortals can only dream of. Regardless of the image they need to portray, celebrities are human, and it can be reassuring to know they’re just as imperfect as the rest of us, scars and all.

It takes a lot of courage to proudly showcase your vulnerability when it feels like the entire world is watching. In an industry rife with retouching and the best makeup techniques money can buy, it would be understandable for a celebrity to cover their scars. That’s what makes the people on this list so refreshing; by wearing their scars openly, they show scars are just another feature that makes them unique, not something to be covered up.

Here are eight of our favorite celebrities with scars.

8. Mark Hamill

Months before the first Star Wars film premiered, Mark Hamill was in a serious car accident and had to undergo facial reconstruction surgery after fracturing his nose and left cheekbone. At the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back, a Wampa attacks Luke; while Hamill says this scene wasn’t explicitly written to explain his scars, the makeup artists on the set used his real ones as a basis for the ones created for the scene.

It’s hard to notice Hamill’s facial scarring even when you know where to look — it shows people pay way more attention to their own perceived “flaws” than others.

7. Tina Fey

Tina Fey has a scar alongside the left side of her face, the result of a childhood encounter straight out of a parent’s nightmares. When she was five, Fey was playing in her front yard when a stranger walked up to her and violently attacked her with a knife.

According to a 2008 interview with People, Fey says she was mostly able to “forget about it” and was a self-described “confident little kid.”

6. Gene Kelly

Old Hollywood star Gene Kelly had a scar on his left cheek, which many fans believed only added to his good looks. Kelly’s scar was the result of a childhood tricycle accident when he was only six years old.

At his AFI Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony, host Shirley MacLaine openly admired not only the scar itself but Kelly’s choice not to lie about it, saying it said a lot about his beliefs.

5. Princess Eugenie

Like most royal brides, Princess Eugenie wore a beautiful gown on her wedding day. The Queen’s granddaughter wore a dress from Peter Pilotto that featured a low-cut back intended to showcase a long scar on Eugenie’s back.

Eugenie underwent scoliosis surgery when she was 12 years old and purposefully chose the dress to show people with the condition they’re not alone. Shortly after her wedding, Eugenie told People she received letters from people who also had scoliosis thanking her for the representation.

4. Harrison Ford

Hamill isn’t the only Star Wars star with facial scarring; Harrison Ford has a notable scar on his chin from an accident years before he starred in the franchise.

Before he worked as an actor, Ford was a carpenter by trade. One day, on the way to work at Bullock’s department store in Long Beach, CA, Ford crashed his car into a telephone pole. Ford recounted the story to Parade, describing the incident as “a real mundane way of earning” his scar.

3. Catherine Zeta-Jones

Catherine Zeta-Jones had a scar on her neck from an emergency tracheotomy when a virus prevented her from breathing properly as an infant.

In a 1998 interview with People, Zeta-Jones claimed she never let makeup artists cover up the scar. “I don’t want to hide it,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have that scar.”

2. Seal

British singer and songwriter Seal, best known for his song “Kiss From a Rose,” has visible facial scarring, which has led fans to come up with theories on how he got them.

The truth is Seal has a form of lupus known as discoid lupus erythematosus, which can cause painful lesions and patches to form on the skin.

1. Padma Lakshmi

Actress, model, writer, and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi has a large scar on her right arm. When she was 14, a car accident fractured her right hip and shattered her upper right arm; surgery gave her full usage of her arm, but Lakshmi remained ashamed of the scar for years.

It wasn’t until her modeling career took off that Lakshmi realized her scar was an asset, not something to be embarrassed by. Lakshmi became designer Helmut Lang’s muse, largely in part due to her scar, and now she celebrates the reminder of the surgery that saved her life.