Why Is The Entire World Losing Its Mind Over Tom Cruise’s ‘New’ Face?

Last night’s BAFTA awards were certainly not without their excitement. In between Rebel Wilson’s controversial speech about #OscarsSoWhite–she spoke about practicing her “trans face” and desiring Idris Elba (because she’s programmed to want chocolate on V-Day) and Stephen Fry’s comments about an award-winning costume designer looking like a designer bag lady, there was so much to discuss that the internet almost missed Tom Cruise’s face. But the world wide interwebs have more than made up for their lax reporting today by asking “what’s up with that” in regards to “Maverick’s” face.

“What has Tom Cruise done to his face?” The Sun blared before discussing the actor’s appearance and pointing out that people had likened his face to that of a “hamster in a tuxedo” and speculating whether he’d had work done. Other outlets followed suit, debating exactly why the 53-year-old looked so different last night than he has in the recent past, going so far as to call him “puffy” and “frozen.” But it’s really the people on Twitter who erupted in a massive tornado of speculation about what exactly’s going on.

This is a photo from late January, when the actor met with Jerry Bruckheimer to maybe discuss Top Gun 2:

Here’s a photo of him with Carrie Fisher from last night for comparison:

And here’s what people were saying (spoiler alert, it was not kind):

Of course, some were less concerned about Cruise’s features and more preoccupied with his perfectly placed middle tooth:

https://twitter.com/youngvulgarian/status/699179080340656129

There was speculation that the face could have been a disguise:

https://twitter.com/LauraGrignani1/status/699241827648598017

And at least one person would still trade places with Cruise, bad face day or no:

https://twitter.com/PaulDesjardine/status/698321411501379584

What’s going on here?