In a long In her personal essay, Margo Price wrote about her decision to undergo a nose and rhinoplasty and the depression she felt before and after the surgery last March. “I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me,” she wrote in the Substack missive, “As Clear as the Nose on My Face.” “I was bruised and battered, like I’d just had the boxing match of my life, and my face was swollen and covered in bandages. What had I done? Who was I without my giant, crooked Barbara (so) Streisand-like nose?”
Price, 41, has been self-conscious about her nose her entire life. It broke the first of several times as it exited the birth canal. It broke in elementary school, and Price’s drinking as a teenager caused further damage. Then came cocaine abuse and more alcohol-related injuries. In addition, she wrote, she felt she did not conform to the supposed beauty standards she saw in the media. Plus, magazines Photoshopped her without her permission.
What led her to the surgery, however, was a sequence of migraines, sinus infections and nosebleeds that began around 2017. The pain peaked last year on a flight to Rhode Island for the Newport Folk Festival, where she planned to pay tribute to her friend John Prine. The changing pressure during the flight increased the pressure in her head so much that after landing, she asked her voice coach for tips and spoke to an ENT doctor via Zoom. “She assessed my symptoms: severe congestion, hearing loss and feeling like I had a knife in my left ear,” Price wrote. “Then she called the pharmacy to order Flonase nasal spray, prescription medication and more Afrin and instructed me to wait a few more days before getting back on the plane. The show went on just a day later, and it’s safe to say I didn’t perform at my best.”
At home, another doctor diagnosed her, explaining that her “sphenoid and ethmoid sinuses were completely blocked.” Surgery would correct her deviated septum and the bone spurs in her nasal cavity. She saw the surgery as an opportunity for cosmetic surgery that would also help her feel better, as long as she didn’t end up with what she described as a “Barbie nose.”
Now, after three months, she writes, breathes and sings better. She also feels healthier.
Despite this, she wrote that she still suffers from poor self-image, which is why she decided to be open about her surgery – in case others feel the same way. “I thought ‘fixing my nose’ would solve everything, but it was much more complicated than that,” Price wrote. “I try not to look in the mirror too much these days. I try not to think too much about my appearance in general, but of course as a woman in the country music industry, that’s impossible. I know I may fit some people’s ideas of what is considered more traditional beauty, but I find myself feeling nostalgic for how I used to look. I still have the slight hint of a bump on the bridge of my nose and I’m happy about it.”
Last year, Price made an interview with Rolling Stone. When asked who she would like to play in a film adaptation of her book, Maybe we can do itshe told Alana Haim. “I liked Liquorice pizza,” she said. “(Alana Haim) was incredible. I really loved that the casting agent spoke to her nose. So we need to find someone with a really strong profile.”
Price has tour dates scheduled for the summer in support of last year’s Stray Publications.
