Mickey Rourke’s appearance has changed dramatically over the years.
The former actor and boxer, 73 was described by fans as a ‘smoke show’ in his prime, but many now claim that he has looked unrecognizable for decades.
Rourke’s good looks slipped away after years of boozing and partaking in a sport that repeatedly damaged his face. He eventually needed reconstructive surgery, which he has admitted didn’t turn out so well.
Here, AI has made a variety of predictions about what Rourke might have looked like if he had never gone under the knife in the first place.
The results were quite a shakeup from how he looks like now, as they showed the star with wrinkles and crow’s feet around his eyes as well as salt and pepper hair.
Rourke previously revealed he underwent cosmetic surgery to fix facial injuries.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2009, the New-York born athlete said: ‘Most of it was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing, but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together.
‘I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone.’
Mickey Rourke’s appearance has changed dramatically over the years. Pictured: On Celebrity Big Brother in 2025
Mickey Rourke was a Hollywood heartthrob in his younger years. Pictured: In 1987 (left) and aged with AI (right)
He added: ‘I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn’t healing properly.’
That same year, his first wife Debra Feuer claimed that Rourke’s bouts of procedures were largely because he was ‘so insecure.’
‘He got worse when he met his second wife, Carre Otis,’ the former actress — who was married to him from 1981 to 1989 — told the Mirror.
‘That’s when the plastic surgery started. He’ll kill me for saying this, but he wanted the part in one film so badly that he got cheek implants.
‘He told me he was swollen because he’d had his molar teeth removed. But I knew that was untrue — he didn’t have any molars to take out.’
Rourke’s Hollywood career exploded in the early 80s and he featured in numerous films, including Diner (1982), Rumble Fish (1983), and 9 1/2 Weeks (1986), in which he starred opposite Kim Basinger.
In the early 90s, he temporarily left acting and pursued a professional boxing career instead.
And it was his boxing career that resulted in a notable physical change and he was forced to undergo reconstructive surgery to mend his facial injuries.
Upon resigning from the sport, Rourke returned to Hollywood where he scooped a Golden Globe and best actor Bafta for his role in The Wrestler in 2008.
The actor previously revealed he went under the knife to fix facial injuries (pictured in January 2026)
Computer-generated images have revealed what he could look like if she never had any cosmetic tweaks. Pictured: In 1986 (left) and aged with AI (right)
Artificial intelligence was told to analyze photos of the former boxer when he was younger and make a variety of predictions about what he should look like at 73. Pictured: In 1987 (left) and aged with AI (right)
Rourke’s Hollywood career has largely declined in recent years.
In 2020, he made a brief appearance on The Masked Singer where he was booted from the competition for removing his gremlin mask because he claimed the costume was too hot.
Last year, Rourke was removed from the Celebrity Big Brother UK house on Day 6 for inappropriate language and unacceptable behavior.
His exit came just days after he had already been warned for using homophobic language in conversation with JoJo Siwa.
Last month, Rourke publicly went after his manager Kimberly Hines for starting a $100,000 GoFundMe amid reports he was getting evicted from his Los Angeles home over unpaid rent.
It was also reported that he is being selective about his work projects despite ongoing financial troubles
Rourke has notoriously battled addiction — both drugs and alcohol — in the past and has taken blame for his own career decline over the years.
He told GQ in an interview: ‘Screwing up my career was never about drugs or about booze. It was always my attitude. I stupidly said acting wasn’t a job for a real man.
‘I raged at directors, threatened producers, even forgot my agent’s name. I knew it was damaging my career – hanging out with bad people – but stupidly, I thought it would make me less of a hard man if I changed.’
