Emmylou Harris

Before

Emmylou seems to have followed Michael Jackson down the route of plastic surgery addiction; every few years she looks weirder, and now she's had her nose shaved down so thin that it's made her singing voice incredibly nasal, just as you'd expect if you pinched your nostrils shut while you sang. Add the weird chin and the overall impression is frightening rather than beautiful.

She can do whatever the fuck she wants iny book. A quiet legend.

Repeated plastic surgery causes severe problems. Eventually there is so much scar tissue, and so much facial structure has been carved away, that the unfortunate plastic-surgery addict starts to look freaky and unnatural even in the hands of the most skilled plastic surgeon. That's what happened to Michael Jackson, and that's what's happened to Emmylou Harris.

Looking back at the face Harris had as a young woman, it's really tragic to see the extent to which she's had it hacked-up and carved and sanded and spackled to arrive at her current deaths-head look. She hardly looks human any more, but like a grotesque doll, something from the film "The Nightmare Before Christmas", or the latest zombie apocalypse film, perhaps.

Emmylou and Debbie Harry see the same surgeon in NY. They’re both on the wall in the waiting area. I do think Deb’s had better results.

Emmylou is a gem. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her on several occasions and she is always an absolute class act. Not to mention she does a bunch of charity work as well as owns her own non-profit focusing on providing care and homes to rescue dogs once their time at the shelters has run out. How could you not love that?!

R6 Really? Emmylou, despite her generous (philanthropy) and liberal image has a pretty rough reputation that I found to be quite accurate decades ago when I worked at a fine dining establishment in Nashville. She made Reba (our most notoriously difficult VIP) seem pleasant.

I commented on Emmylou’s incredible shrinking nose to my father and he was so mad at me. He always had a crush on her.

Emmylou used to bump boxes with the plaid clad whales out in Joshua Tree. She likes em real butch. Wonder why she never came out?

More like Emmy Who? Seriously, who is this lady?

In OP’s picture she looks like Sela Ward.

I'm a big fan of Emmylou, but I find it strange that even though she was prematurely grey, she still opted to not dye her hair and grow grey gracefully, but did not use that same approach for her face.

I love Emmylou to bits and she does seem to have had some work done. On the other hand, her face has always looked somewhat whittled and chiselled.

You can see that chiselled look in this video from, I think, 1977. This is beyond heavenly.

Sorry, r10, but you're the one missing out. Not everything is about having the biggest smash hits, some music is simply divine and eternal, and that often involves a quieter focus.

Emmylou's fabulous cover of Donna Summer's "On the Radio."

Love her — LOVE her. But she is purportedly a very not nice person.

More about Reba’s difficult behavior please!

She's a Goddess and can do Whatever the Fuck she likes!

R15 I’m sure R10 was referring in jest to how unrecognizable Emmylou has become.

R13 She had a pretty severe nose job early in her career, not unlike Sissy Spacek. You can see Emmylou’s original nose at R2. Natural noses tend to look bigger as we age, but the opposite is true when you get a rhinoplasty - they shrink. So it makes sense that EH is looking even more extreme than she used to.

R5 This guy?

Had the honor of crossing paths with her a time or two in my career and she is imperious and demanding but not in a way that’s cruel/baseless. It’s perfectionism. She expects excellence of herself, and by extension those who work with her. She’s in the pantheon of true stars for me. Emmylou, Dolly, Linda, and Alison are Mount Rushmore of greatness.

If Dolly is to be believed, it was Linda Ronstadt who drove her crazy during the recording of “Trio,” not Emmylou:

To hear Parton tell it, the sessions could have been titled "The Three Tempers": Parton, who can nail a song "just as good the first time as the hundredth"; Harris, the "sweet" country purist who painstakingly researched material; and Ronstadt, the perfectionist diva who "loves to live in the studio and works so slow, it drives me nuts. I wanted to say, 'Wake up, bitch, I got stuff to do.' Then, picking up with more Dolly-like sass and animation: "I realized we're now just a bunch of old crotchety, cranky women, set in our ways and getting up there 'round fifty, goin' through change-of-life mood swings. You never know a true feeling from a hot flash. I thought, I don't need this. I ain't that old yet."

Big whoop op. 90% of older celebrities have some plastic surgery. It’s not new or unusual or worth mentioning unless it disfigures

What are you talking about OP? She's beautiful. Let it be she's gorgeous.

It is curious that hippie dippie Emmylou has had multiple facelifts and styles herself like some kind of geriatric tartlet these days. Very incongruous with her image as a young woman.

That nose

Am i the only one who thinks she looks incredibly beautiful? That’s a plastic surgery success if you ask me.

Glamor!

I agree R29, she’s gorgeous. It’s not so much that the work is bad, it’s just shocking when you’re old enough to recall what she looked like back in the day. She was very au naturale, Topanga Canyon Earth Mama. It’d be like Joni Mitchell going the way of Jane Fonda.

To quote Willie Nelson: "There are two kinds of men. Those who are in love with Emmylou Harris, and those who haven't met her.".

And she’s 76. Leave the legend alone!

I have no respect for closet cases. Emmylou has had decades to come out and instead she’s continued carrying on in sham marriages, all while clam jousting on the side with other sad sack DL lezzies. Joan Jett is another one who refuses to acknowledge what we all know. But they don’t mind exploiting their LGBTQ fans - the pink pound pays for all those facelifts!

R34 fuck off. She doesn't owe you or anyone anything. She isn't actively denigrating or doing anything to hurt gay people.

They reap all the benefits of being “queer icons” without any of the stigma. It’s cowardice. Their representation would have moved the needle - in Nashville, in rock. Just look at what Chely Wright endured, mostly alone. She was a lot braver than either Emmylou or Joan.

Melissa Etheridge, KD Lang, Tracy Chapman. All paid a huge price for coming out. But all are better for it and found new fans when certain other fans rejected them. It’s 2024, not 1950. Come on Emmylou. As for Joan Jett - she’s always been a cunt, and she’s clearly not willing to jeopardize her standing with straight male rock listeners. The old crone will die in the closet.

The fact that EH wants to take care of herself and make a good impression is a positive thing, no matter how she goes about it, in my opinion. Only sad people (like most of the DL) let themselves go.

Right, r38. At what age did you begin your plastic surgery addiction?

I’ve heard stray references to Harris being lesbian or bi over the years, but I wonder how one keeps a secret like that when you’re as big a star as she was?

A friend of mine worked behind the scenes for Harris and her then-husband. Granted it’s 2nd hand info, but she was adamant that they were both gay and in a lavender marriage.

I've always really liked her and her voice.

Here's something weird - on the Linda Ronstadt tribute, there were 2 performances recorded of "When Will I Be Loved." The one that aired officially had Emmy Lou's part performed by Carrie Underwood. In the other one, Emmy Lou is singing but very faintly. I wonder what happened.

The officially aired version is linked here.

Gram Parson's final muse. She loved him and has arduously protected him and his music, without fail, since his death. I've long waited for her autobiography, to see what she'd say about him and the extent of their relationship. No one has ever seemed to know the whole story, I'm guessing we'll probably find out when she's gone.

She's had three husbands and two kids, not sure if that makes her a lifelong closeted gay, perhaps a late-life convert but definitely not in her earlier younger years and career.

Emmylou’s Nashville house is currently for sale.

Oops, wrong link at r42

She has an excellent plastic surgeon. Better than Madonna's.

R44 It’s giving butch.

Is that a second home r44? I thought she lived down in the city, near Music Row. She has stated this in interviews.

The link at r44 is of a ranch outside Nashville with an in-home recording studio that she has recorded at. She has not lived there.

It’s a former home R48. She owned it before the current sellers.

Link to a recent story re the house at r44.

Excellent hair.

R7 Where did you work, if l may ask? I daw Barbara Mandrell in a shop in Green Hills and she was a fucking cunt. Was Emmylou as bad as Barbara?