Plastic surgeons have weighed in on rumors that Drake has had cosmetic surgery — after a feud involving a rival rapper turned ugly over the weekend.
Hip-hop star and former friend Rick Ross accused 37-year-old Drake — who is mixed race — of getting an ‘operation to make your nose smaller than your father nose’.
In a series of online posts antagonizing the Canadian rapper, Ross also claimed that Drake had surgery to remove fat and accentuate his abs — calling Drake ‘BBL Drizzy’.
While the nose job accusation is new, rumors that Drake — whose real name is Aubrey Graham — has had work done on his body have been circulating for years.
DailyMail.com put the claims to top plastic surgeons.
Drake, 37, has likely received a nose job, according to two plastic surgeons. They pointed to his
Dr Elie Levine, a plastic surgeon in New York City, said that if Drake had gotten a nose job, ‘it was done in a subtle way’.
‘It’s not like he has gone from looking like one person to a totally different person, but there is definitely more definition in the later photos,’ he added, claiming that lighting, camera angles or simple natural aging could all impact this.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Dr Levine said: ‘Light can always affect these things and can make a difference.
‘But, if you really scrutinize it — there is a high likelihood that he did some nasal contouring [where part of the nose is shaven down or reshaped].
‘The tip looks better defined in the [more recent] photos, and it also looks a little more subtle and a little less obvious.
‘I would point to the bridge too, which looks slightly narrowed. If you are making subtle changes to one part of the nose, then you are almost always obligated to make subtle changes to other parts.’
Dr Raja Mohan, a plastic surgeon in Texas, said: ‘There is a high likelihood he had a rhinoplasty [nose job] because his tip looks smaller and his nasal bridge is narrower.’
But he said he could not be certain because ‘in the more recent photos, there is still a slight hump on the [bridge of the nose] and some tip fullness on the right… or asymmetries that I noted.’
Usually, during these procedures, any imperfections are rectified during the surgery.
Rick Ross has posted a number of images referring to the alleged nose job and BBL on Instagram. Many tagged Drake’s Instagram account ‘@champagnepapi’ directly
Drake has pushed back on the allegations with the above screenshot, which he claimed showed a conversation between himself and his mother
Rapper Rick Ross has accused Drake of having a nose job, which has opened up a long-running feud between Drake and other artists
The surgeons compared pictures of Drake from his childhood, as well as images from around 2009 — when he released his breakthrough mixtape ‘Best I Ever Had’ — to those from nearer the present day for their assessment.
Drake has denied the nose job rumors, and shared an alleged text conversation between himself and his mother where he says: ‘I would have got us a 2 for 1 deal if I went ma.’
It is not the first time Drake has been accused of getting plastic surgery after rumors emerged in 2016 that he had had liposuction in order to get sculpted abs.
Rapper Joe Budden made the allegation in his song Afraid where he said: ‘Yeah Aubrey that’s the one we trust, not this new Aubrey with his stomach sculpted.’
The rumors resurfaced again in 2018, with rapper Pusha T’s diss song aimed at Drake, called ‘The Story of Adidon’.
The song included the lyrics ‘surgical summer’ and ‘snip, snip, snip’.
Drake has never fully been able to shake the allegations since.
In 2023 Drake shared a photo of himself topless after a cold plunge, which prompted several comments questioning whether his abs were natural.
One wrote, ‘does Drake know that people with defined abs usually have other defined muscles too?’, while a second said, ‘Drake and these tummy tuck abs’.
Dr Andrew Peredo, a plastic surgeon in New York City, said: ‘It is possible that he got liposuction, but with the photos available it is hard to tell.
‘I can’t see any incisions or any cannula marks, and it looks uniformly like he has toned up, so it doesn’t seem like it — and looks pretty natural.
‘That said, the only way to really tell is when you touch it. Something looks like a six-pack, but when you touch it you find out whether it is muscle or just fat — which would be liposuction.
‘He could also have gone in for minimal liposuction, which some patients with access resources go in for and you barely see it.’
Minimal liposuction is when small pockets of fat are removed from different areas of the body — like around the abs — to enhance curves and provide a more natural-looking definition. This differs from standard liposuction which removes larger areas of fat. The incisions are also smaller and more subtle.
The latest feud between Drake and Rick Ross comes after several rappers and former collaborators of Drake’s began ‘dissing’ him.
Former frequent collaborators Future and Metro Boomin, the rapper-producer duo, seemingly fired off a series of shots at Drake on their new album We Don’t Trust you.
Kendrick Lamar, the Weekend and A$AP Rocky all appeared to diss Drake during guest features on the album.
DailyMail.com reached out to Drake’s representatives for comment ahead of the publication of this story.