Donald Trump looked different. Not in the vague, tabloid way—different in the almost disorienting sense that comes when a familiar public figure suddenly appears without their most recognisable visual trademark.
Over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, the former president posed for a photo with Liz Truss, the United Kingdom’s shortest-serving prime minister. Truss dutifully posted the shot on X, praising Donald Trump as “Right about everything,” but the internet zeroed in on something else entirely.
The tan was gone.
Or at least, the famous Trumpian bronze that’s launched a thousand memes had faded to an unexpectedly pallid hue. In the picture, Donald Trump, 79, stands in his usual off-duty uniform—a red polo shirt, white “USA” cap, thumbs up, grin fixed in place. Yet his face looks almost ghostly compared with the deep orange tone that became part of his political brand throughout his 2016, 2020, and especially 2024 campaigns.
“What on earth is wrong with Liz Truss?”
James O’Brien can’t fathom what the former prime minister was thinking after posting a picture alongside Donald Trump with the caption ‘Right about everything’. pic.twitter.com/RFohdXasqc
— LBC (@LBC) February 16, 2026
The reactions were not kind.
“He looks so ill,” one X user wrote. Another went further: “My god, he looks like death there.”
The Mar-a-Lago snapshot with Liz Truss should have been an easy, low-stakes win for both politicians: a US president hosting a former UK prime minister at his Florida club over Valentine’s weekend, with Melania Trump also on the property. Instead, it turned into another reminder of how thoroughly Donald Trump’s appearance has been absorbed into the culture.
“Why has he started skipping makeup occasionally?” one person asked beneath Truss’s post. “Looks like the makeup artist took the weekend off,” another quipped.
What do you notice in this photo of Trump with former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss? pic.twitter.com/KCrmaSreDY
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 15, 2026
It may sound petty, but in Donald Trump’s case, the color of his face has never been just a superficial detail. His orange-tinged complexion has been endlessly mocked, memed, defended, and dissected. It has become shorthand—depending on your politics—for either vanity and absurdity or confidence and showmanship.
The question of how Donald Trump achieves his orangey look has been a low-level obsession for nearly a decade. Officially, his camp has leaned into the myth of natural superiority. A senior Donald Trump administration official told The New York Times back in 2019 that the president’s coloring was the product of “good genes,” insisting he only uses “a little translucent powder” for television.
Anyone who has seen him up close under daylight has found that explanation hard to swallow.
French makeup artist Audrey Lefevre, who worked with Donald Trump’s family during the 2017 inauguration, offered a more grounded assessment in an interview with The Independent. “I don’t think President Trump wears a lot of makeup all the time, because I don’t think he likes that,” she said. “Obviously, for TV you have to, it’s kind of mandatory. But it’s mostly a spray tan in my opinion.”
Liz Truss tweeted that Trump is ‘always right’, in a fresh blow to the president pic.twitter.com/Lj15UOfVMz
— Have I Got News For You (@haveigotnews) February 16, 2026
Her reasoning was straightforward and, frankly, obvious to anyone with a trained eye: “As a makeup artist, this is my opinion because we can see otherwise on his hairline, he’s very fair-skinned, very blond, very fair-skinned.”
In other words, without the tan, you get the man—in this case, a 79-year-old with the sort of fair, Northern European coloring that does not naturally veer toward pumpkin.
Lefevre even floated a possible purpose behind the obsession with staying bronzed: “Maybe to hide some skin issues or something like that,” she suggested, before adding that “it’s now makeup this orange situation.”
The tan itself became part of the performance. It signaled vitality, a kind of strange, perma-summer energy. And like everything else with Trump, once it was noticed and mocked, he doubled down on it.
Why doesn’t someone who loves Donald Trump tell him how absolutely ridiculous he looks with all that bronzer — reportedly Bronx Colors-brand face makeup from Switzerland — slathered all over his face? pic.twitter.com/kYc8EgUpq0
— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) April 12, 2024
Some online critics didn’t bother with nuance, saying flatly that he looked “ill” or “like death.” The comments were harsh, but they reveal something that’s harder to dismiss: when a man who has spent years micromanaging his image starts to abandon a defining cosmetic crutch, people notice—and they wonder why.
It’s entirely possible that the explanation is banal. Maybe he skipped a spray tan session. Maybe his team is rethinking the aesthetic now that he’s settled back into power. Maybe Florida lighting is less forgiving than campaign lighting. Not everything requires a conspiracy.
What is clear is that even a simple photograph, posted in support by a British politician still trying to rehabilitate her own disastrous 45-day premiership, can instantly become a referendum on Donald Trump’s body, age, and vanity. Truss wanted to underline that Trump was “Right about everything.” The internet decided to talk about his face.
Trump without makeup. They spackle his wrinkles and spray his face to give him the illusion of being younger. pic.twitter.com/m1zEWBGdqt
— Diana Manister (@DianaCialino) September 16, 2023
For a man who has always sold himself as larger than life, there’s something almost uncomfortably human about these new, paler images. Strip away the tan, and what you’re left with isn’t a meme or a brand. It’s just an aging politician in a red golf shirt, trying—as ever—to look invincible.
