A cosmetic doctor who faced a backlash over a video picking apart pop star Troye Sivan’s appearance says he “feels terrible” for upsetting the singer – but will continue to post.
London-based Dr Zayn Khalid Majeed posted a two-minute clip drawing attention to the 30-year-old’s “problem” areas following an appearance at a recent event in Australia.
Fans criticised the “unsolicited” advice, and the singer himself responded with an essay explaining how the video had triggered long-held insecurities about his body.
Since deleting the video and contacting Sivan to apologise, Majeed tells BBC Newsbeat he will try to make a more positive impact with his content.
Sivan, whose career began when he was a teenager, is regarded by many as a poster boy for the “twink” look.
The term refers to younger, slim gay men with a boyish look, and Sivan’s image appears prominently in Google results and on Wikipedia’s definition page.
In the video, which compared studio images of the singer with recent footage from a red carpet interview, Majeed said Sivan appeared to be showing signs of “twink death”.
The cosmetic doctor, who has more than 250,000 followers across platforms, pointed towards several “problem areas”, such as shadows and “volume loss” in the singer’s face.
He then imagined a scenario where Sivan was his patient and listed various cosmetic “improvements” he could opt for, including skin boosters and dermal filler.
People on social media and fans of Sivan criticised Majeed’s “unsolicited” advice on ways to “retwinkify” himself.
The singer himself then got involved, posting on blogging platform Substack about how the video had heightened his insecurities and pushed him towards considering cosmetic surgery.
“I’ve struggled with my body image for a lot of my life, as I’m sure most people have,” he wrote. “What good is money and modern medicine if not to fix all of these flaws that this random… plastic surgeon told me I have?”
Newsbeat reached out to Majeeed, who said Sivan’s response “was incredibly raw and vulnerable”.
“I felt terrible and it was never my intention to make him feel like that, which is why I reached out to him directly to apologise,” he says.
Majeed deleted the videos from his TikTok and Instagram, and Sivan later updated his blog to say there were “no hard feelings from [his] side”.
The doctor admits he can “see how it came across”.
Majeed says he started creating content to “educate and inform” people, but began to talk about celebrities because viewers seemed to enjoy it.
“For every one celebrity video I make, I make five chatty educational videos,” he says.
But, reflecting on the situation with Sivan, he says he doesn’t want to contribute to the “negative beauty standards” that people face.
“I have a voice and I need to use it to shape conversations for the better, where we’re more body positive and we accept ageing as a natural process,” he says. “Sometimes you don’t realise the impact that you can have.”
However, Majeed says he will continue to make videos that analyse celebrity faces because he believes there is an appetite for them.
“It is important to demystify surgeries that celebrities have and educate patients,” he says.
Samantha Rizzo, a “skin-positivity” content creator based in New York, says she can see a benefit to posts that seek to “showcase” cosmetic work or provide more information.
“I appreciate if you’re using your clients and they consent to their before, during, after photos,” she tells Newsbeat. “I feel a little icky when they’re just taking the celebrity’s picture.
“Just because they’re famous doesn’t mean you have the right to just pick them apart.”
Rizzo, 26, had botox injected into her jaw in the hope it would relieve pain and migraines after watching videos online. But it left her with limited facial movement and she says she regrets doing it.
In hindsight, she believes her insecurities were shaped by the content she was “consuming”.
“The things you can see can skew your perception of yourself so much that it forces your hand for a decision like that,” she says. “It’s mind-boggling”.
Irish-born social media personality Keelin Moncrieff says she has concerns about the availability of information on various procedures and the influence it can have on young people.
The mum-of-one tells Newsbeat she understands some creators might try to be “transparent” about any work they’ve had done, but argues it risks acting as an endorsement for the treatment.
“People can’t make up or fill in the gaps of what they’re not seeing behind the scenes,” she says. “People think that this is an easy process.”
Moncrieff, 28, also says that being online comes with unwanted comments about your appearance – something she’s experienced.
“I remember I got a comment once saying that my hands were really wrinkly,” she recalls. “That’s something that’s never even popped into my brain.”
When it comes to surgical changes though, she’s made her mind up.
“Very often I look in the mirror and think: ‘Oh, I could get this done, I could get this done’,” she says.
“I would find that disturbing. I don’t want to uphold those standards.”
Originally published at BBC News
