For years, people suggested to Barbra Streisand that she get a nose job.
But she never caved to the pressure, despite many arguing it would have helped her career, and now the superstar is explaining why.
In her new memoir, My Name is Barbra, the 81-year-old writes about the criticism she faced over her facial features — especially the “bump” on her nose.
“I had already been told by several people that I should get a nose job and cap my teeth. I thought, Isn’t my talent enough? A nose job would hurt and be expensive,” she wrote, according to an excerpt provided to People magazine.
“Besides, how could I trust anyone to do exactly what I wanted and no more? I liked the bump on my nose, but should I consider a minor adjustment … just straighten it slightly at the bottom and take a tiny bit off the tip?”
She also writes that rhinoplasty “was too much of a risk” to her talent.
“Once a doctor told me I had a deviated septum … maybe that’s why I sound the way I do.”
The EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winner also makes clear that comments about her face were mean and unnecessary, specifically calling out a 1964 Time magazine cover story where the writer called her nose a “shrine” that left her face with “the essence of a hound.”
“I guess when you become famous, you become public property. You’re an object to be examined, photographed, analyzed, dissected,” she wrote. “And half the time I don’t recognize the person they portray. I’ve never gotten used to it, and I try to avoid reading anything about myself.”
FILE – Barbra Streisand attends The 40th Anniversary Chaplin Award Gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.
Lars Niki / Corbus via Getty Images
According to Today, she also reflects on a time when someone attempted to photoshop her nose without her consent.
When asked to review the cover art for her 1974 album The Way We Were she noticed that Columbia Records had done something “strange” with her face.
“I gave the shot to the art department at Columbia, and when they sent the finished cover back to me, I took one look and asked, ‘What happened here? Something’s strange.’
“Well, it turned out that someone had taken off the bump on my nose! I guess they thought I’d be pleased, but I actually like that bump,” she wrote. “That bump and I have been through a lot together.”
In fact, Streisand says she likes long noses: “Italian actress Silvana Mangano had one and everyone seemed to think she was beautiful.”
She also writes that it wasn’t just pressure to change her face — when she was starting out in showbiz she was told she should also change her name.
“They wanted something simpler … Barbara Strand or Sands … but that felt phony,” she recalled. “Plus, how would my old friends know it was me, once I became famous?”
Instead, she chose to only change the spelling of her first name from “Barbara” to “Barbra” so she could be “different and unique.”
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