Hulu’s tell-all documentary about The Swan featured many former contestants, but Dr. Terry Dubrow was noticeably missing after participating as a medical professional on the controversial reality show.
The Swan: Behind the Mirror, which premiered on Tuesday, September 29, revisited the 2004 Fox series that promised physical transformations for everyday women through dramatic cosmetic surgery. Director Erin Lee Carr spoke with many contestants from both seasons, crew members and even Dr. Randal Haworth, who addressed performing operations on the show.
Dubrow, 68, for his part, wasn’t featured in the documentary. At the end of the special, a message appeared on screen confirming that Dubrow “declined to be interviewed for this film.”
Carr recently told Variety that she had “many conversations” about The Swan creator Nely Galán being interviewed for the doc. Galán’s alleged demands included an executive producer credit and editorial control that led to Carr opting out of featuring her perspective.
While some prefer to fly under the radar when they get plastic surgery, celebrities including Denise Richards, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Jessi Ngatikaura and Heidi Montag keep it candid. After getting some of her enhancements reversed in 2013, Montag exclusively told Us Weekly that she struggled with the decision. Thank You! You have successfully subscribed. […]
The director also claimed Dubrow “wanted a sum of money that would never make sense for a documentarian to pay an expert.” She hinted it was “under $100,000 for one interview” to be included in The Swan: Behind the Mirror.
While Dubrow hasn’t weighed in on the Hulu special, he did reflect on his experience filming The Swan. During a recent appearance on the “We Need to Talk With Paul C. Brunson” podcast, Dubrow claimed the show had been approved for a third season.
“We’re casting the third season, and because reality TV was really pushing the envelope at the time, we were going to do some crazy casting. We were going to have triplets,” he shared. “And because there were two surgeons, I was going to operate on two, [Haworth] was going to operate on one, and we were going to see how different they looked.”
When Peter Ligouri took over as entertainment chairman at Fox, one of his first decisions was to cancel The Swan.
Dubrow previously made rare comments about his participation when filming a special for Vice TV.
“This was the dawn of a new era both in reality TV and in plastic surgery,” the Botched star said in 2024 about why he decided to sign up for The Swan. “Even though it was gloriously interesting and exciting and fun, it was exhausting.”
He continued: “I think in the two weeks of everyday surgery that we did, we did something like 200 plastic surgery operations on these patients. That was more than [what] a typical plastic surgeon would do in an entire year!”
The Swan: Behind the Mirror is currently streaming on Hulu.
