A Turkish facial plastic surgeon known for hyper-viral social media content is being sued by a featured patient who says the images of him that went viral last week are altered and inauthentic.
- The patient’s name is Engin Demir, not Michael, as the clinic claimed.
- Engin Demir had 1 surgery—a rhinoplasty four years ago—not 8 surgeries, as the clinic claimed.
- Patient Engin Demir is a Turkish resident, not an American tourist, as the clinic commented.
- And the “before” image is not the same patient Engin Demir at all—but a different person entirely.
That’s according to a live, on-the-ground interview conducted in Turkey on Sunday, where the alleged surgeries are said to have taken place.
First to find and speak to the patient featured on social media was Ekol TV, a Turkish news station, who broke this news early Monday, June 3, 2024.
Clinic’s Claim, Now Deleted: “We performed facelift, necklift, lower eyelid blepharoplasty, upper blepharoplasty, buccal fat removal, rhinoplasty, and hair transplant procedures on our patient, Michael. He has experienced an incredible transformation, which you can see from the photos….”
Via Turkish plastic surgery clinic and social media account, Estemedistanbultr, Instagram.com.
Ekol TV’s report and interview, available here in Turkish, comes days after UK’s The Daily Mail reported on potential digital manipulation of the same series of images*, and after prior reports from this masthead, in May 2024 and September 2023.
In brief, Mr. Engin Demir says he underwent a single rhinoplasty surgery with the Turkish clinic four years ago, not 8 separate surgeries as the clinic is now claiming.
Mr. Demir says that the clinic then edited his photo, and placed it beside a “70-year-old man”—whom he does not know and has never met. [“If there is a Michael, I say hello. So we have become imaginary friends with him now,” he jokes.]
The two men featured are two different people entirely, presented by the clinic as though it was Mr. Demir’s before-and-after plastic surgery results.
The men are not related and do not know each other, Mr. Demir says.
Mr. Demir has filed a formal legal complaint against the clinic, and against “anyone who edited and used the photos on social media,” he told Turkey’s Ekol TV.
When an earlier series of this clinic’s alleged results went hyper-viral in September 2023, Surgical Times reached out to the Turkish plastic surgery clinic, then online as “DrMayAesthetic,” for comment. We heard from @DrMayAesthetic several times, but have yet to receive comment or correction regarding the allegations of digital alterations we’d heard from several aesthetic experts.
The Turkish clinic—which has since changed its name and/or social media handles—told the Times in September that “Dr May” performed the patient’s facial plastic surgery work.
Whether Dr. Mustafa Ali Yanik is or was involved in the social posts that are now the subject of a lawsuit, is unknown.
The viral Instagram post shared last week by @estemedistanbultr has been removed as of Monday.
In light of the latest allegations and lawsuit, Surgical Times again reached out to the clinic and surgeon for comment.
We added an update at 2:50 pm PDT:
Available data suggests the Turkish clinic has again changed its social profile name/web address for reasons unknown. Early this morning the clinic went by @estemedistanbultr. It now uses @esteistanbultr. The account previously used the names @drmustafaaliyanik and @drmayaesthetic.
* In two separate articles dated May 31, 2024, UK’s DailyMail reports both that they did and did not hear from the clinic in question: “MailOnline approached the Istanbul clinic for comment on the remarkable case — and a number of other similarly breathtaking makeovers on their page — but received no response,” and “DailyMail.com also spoke Dr Eli May, the lead surgeon at the Istanbul clinic who claims that the 2,000 radical before and after images shared online are ‘undoctored’.”