How did Joaquin Phoenix get the scar on his lip?

Joaquin Phoenix is no joke, but he has embodied Joker in two movies now, and his appearances in both of those feature films are perfectly insane. Yet, every so often people notice something about Phoenix’s lip and have questions.

One such person was talk show host Wendy Williams who, back in 2020, decided to discuss the scar on Phoenix’s lip partly by mocking it.

At first, Williams was rather complimentary, referring to Phoenix as attractive and pointing out her favorite Phoenix facial features. However, she noted that when Phoenix shaves, his cleft lip shows. She noted that tit’s something that she likes, but she wasn’t entirely certain if it was a cleft lip. However, she then tried to portray it by pushing her lip up with her finger and holding it there in a bizarre and unkind display of mocking it. Unfortunately for Wendy, this didn’t go unnoticed.

There was quite the backlash from her poorly thought out maneuver but, to her credit, she apologized and stated that she would donate money to two different cleft lip organizations.

Joaquin never commented on the Wendy Williams mini-controversy, but it made many people wonder what, exactly, is that scar on his lip. Is it actually a cleft lip, a scar, or something else?

What Phoenix has is called a microform cleft. It’s less of a gap and more of a scar. The Mayo Clinic defines a cleft lip and a cleft palate as “openings or splits in the upper lip, the roof of the mouth (palate) or both. Cleft lip and cleft palate result when facial structures that are developing in an unborn baby don’t close completely.”

A microform cleft can be described as a much milder version a cleft lip.

Joaquin Phoenix told Vanity Fair in 2019 that it’s not a surgically fixed cleft, but rather it’s a non-surgical scar he was born with.

According to the CDC, one in 1,050 babies are born with a cleft lip (with or without a cleft palate) and 1,600 babies are born with a cleft palate.

The frequency for microform clefts are unknown. However, according to a study published on Pocket Dentistry, it’s likely that microform clefts make up about 3% of those with cleft lips.

Although Joker: Folie à Deux starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga hasn’t exactly been critically acclaimed, Phoenix did win the Oscar for his portrayal of Joker in the first film of the movie series.

Phoenix has also been nominated for three other Oscars, including for Best Supporting Actor for Gladiator in 2001, which is a film that has also recently released a sequel, albeit without Phoenix.

In 2006, he was nominated for Best Actor in his unforgettable performance as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Then, in 2013, he was nominated again for Best Actor thanks to his lead role in the film The Master.

What’s next for Jaoaquin? He is set to co-star with the Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal, though disappointingly, it is not in a Star Wars role, despite how obvious it is that Phoenix would make an amazingly good dark Jedi. Instead, it’s in the upcoming feature film Eddington. Phoenix will play a sheriff in a mysterious small town in New Mexico in what is being described as a dark comedy — though I’d still prefer him to be a dark Jedi.