Amber Tamblyn Recalls Getting Her Ears Pinned at 12, Despite Considering Herself a ‘Fiery Young Feminist’

Amber Tamblyn is reflecting on getting plastic surgery as a preteen. 

In a new guest piece published by The New York Times on Sunday, Oct. 20, the actress and writer, 41, opened up about getting her ears pinned when she was younger in order to fit in. 

"As a little girl I had ears that stuck out like big butterfly wings," Tamblyn wrote in the essay. "Some kids at my school in Los Angeles would make fun of them, and I’d often stare at myself in the mirror wishing my ears would lay flat against my head."

Detailing that she decided to "undergo ear-pinning surgery" at age 12 after landing her first "major role on a TV show" – seemingly a reference to her role as Emily Bowen in General Hospital, which she portraye from 1995 to 2001 — the star continued, "For years, my parents watched me struggle with private shame, though they understood I was a tough kid who could handle it."

"But once I knew millions of people all over the world would be judging me on their television screens, not just on a playground, that knowledge changed everything for me," Tamblyn added.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, ear pinning is an elective operation to "permanently bring your ears closer to your head." Most people opt for the surgery for cosmetic reasons, and the website states that the surgery is common among children and teens.

Tamblyn also wrote that, at the time, she considered herself a "fiery young feminist" and had even penned a poem about "the kind of aesthetics I was seeing in the entertainment business, especially among women. (The piece was later published in her first book, Free Stallion.)

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"Yet in changing my own body, I was also a hypocrite who gave in to it — because how could anyone not? Going under the knife felt like choosing a weapon I could wield in self-defense against my own disposability," the Y: The Last Man star then said of her moral dilemma.

"It showed the world I understood the assignment of assimilation — that I could do whatever it took to fit in, never stand out, the way my ears once did," she added.

In her essay, Tamblyn also related her experience to Demi Moore’s 2024 horror movie The Substance, which sees an aging television star taking an experimental drug to be reborn into a younger body. 

She wrote that her own experience in the entertainment industry has seen her coming in contact with a director telling who told her "that the key to a long-lasting career was to stay as young as possible for as long as possible" and overhearing an agent "describe representing actresses who are past their 30s as 'hell on earth.' "

Now, looking back, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants actress wonders if the cosmetic surgery was a mistake. "Would I be less happy if I had fought against the desire to get my ears pinned back, if they still stuck out today? I don’t know — but I do think about it often, and about my willingness to align myself with the industry’s expectations," she wrote.

Once again dawing parallels to the Moore-centered horror movie, Tamblyn expressed, "My experience, and 'The Substance,' are not just Hollywood stories. These are universal realities for any woman, no matter her background or profession. The subtle messages of sexism are passed down to us as generational wisdom, almost from birth."

She added, however, that she refuses to deem plastic surgery an evil force. "I’m not saying that plastic surgery is bad or that everyone who elects to change their bodies regrets their decision — my 12-year-old self included. There can be agency and even self-love involved with the choice, and for some of us there are deeply personal reasons for doing so," Tamblyn wrote.

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Moore, while promoting her movie, also opened up about the pressures she felt as a young actress.

In a September interview with The Guardian, she spoke of how expectations for women's bodies in the '90s negatively affected her. "What I did to myself," she told the outlet. "What I made it mean about me. Really looking at that violence, how violent we can be towards ourselves, how just brutal."

She added, "Self-judgment, chasing perfection, trying to rid ourselves of 'flaws', also feeling rejected and despair, none of this is exclusive to women."