Culture
Bobbi Althoff, a Podcaster, Shares That Her Face Was Paralyzed After a “Botched” Botox
Podcaster Bobbi Althoff shares her experience with facial paralysis from a Botox mishap
Bobbi Althoff, the host of Not This Again, shared her ordeal with the side-effects of her recent Botox treatment.
In her TikTok video on Nov. 9 with the caption “#botchedbotox,” she said, “If people are asking, ‘Bobbi, why is your face not moving?’ let me explain to them.” She disclosed that in the year 2023, she made a decision to follow a practitioner’s advice who recommended Botox, hence 20 units were injected in her chin without her realizing that she would not be able to make a smile because of the side of her face that was extremely tight.

Bobbi Althoff Overcomes Her Fear of Botox Following a Chronic Jaw Pain Diagnosis
After her first Botox session, which made her face tight and unable to smile, Bobbi Althoff, 28, became terrified of Botox. The podcaster, who was massively successful in 2023 with The Really Good Podcast, recently had a reintroduction to Botox in a visit to a TMJ specialist for chronic jaw pain.
“I had a visit, he did a CT scan of my jaw, and he said, ‘It is not a problem with the bone, it is a problem with the muscle, ‘” Bobbi remembered. When the doctor asked, “Have you ever thought of getting Botox in your jaw?” she answered, “Yes, but I had a bad experience with Botox.”
Bobbi Althoff reveals the pain she endured after a Botox injection for her jaw
After the TMJ specialist convinced her that Botox would work to relax the muscles, Bobbi Althoff went ahead with the procedure despite her scary thought. The podcaster, who shares daughters Luca, 5, and Isla, 3, with ex-husband Cory Althoff, got a total of 50 units of Botox in both her temples, a dosage she referred to as “a lot” at that time.
When the effect of the Botox started to show, Bobbi felt that her eyes looked “frozen.” The thing that upset her most, however, was that she couldn’t smile. “My face is frozen. I can feel all this tension right in here. It just hurts,” she uttered with a grimace through the pain, trying to better her smile on camera but failing.

Bobbi Althoff Continues to Experience Side Effects of Botox, Has Difficulty Talking and Eating
Bobbi Althoff shared that her Botox side effects were not just about the lack of expression of the face—she said that when she met with her dentist she told him that she was having difficulty speaking and that “it hurts to eat.” But, her doctor told her that the injections cannot be removed for quite a few months.
“I am scared of the changes that it is going to make to my face, but there is nothing I can do,” Bobbi commented. “So for the next three months, I will just be looking like an idiot.”
Meghan Trainor reveals that her smile changed due to multiple rounds of Botox and filler
Bobbi Althoff, a person who had a hard time with Botox, is not the only one. Singer Meghan Trainor, 30, unveiled that she underwent several rounds of Botox and filler treatments that changed her smile.
“One person with my tiny lips tricked me into thinking that if you did a lip flip, you just put a little filler right above your upper lip, and that you could have a beautiful flip on your upper lip,” Meghan confessed on her podcast Workin’ On It last December. “It was totally false. I just can’t smile any longer.”

