Ryan Murphy Says Plastic Surgery Was ‘Taboo’ When He Made Nip/Tuck, but Now ‘People Flaunt It More’

Ryan Murphy is looking back at making a show about plastic surgery in the early 2000s — and how conversations surrounding cosmetic procedures have changed since. 

The Emmy winner, 59, crafted the drama series Nip/Tuck, which follows the professional and personal lives of the co-founders of a controversial plastic surgery center. 

During a panel at New York Comic Con for his upcoming series The Beauty, Murphy looked back at the FX show, stating, “With every passing month, there seems to be less and less and less and less judgment about Semaglutides [a medication to treat type 2 diabetes and for chronic weight management] and plastic surgery.”

“It is kind of a new status symbol, in a weird way,” he continued.

“I remember, back in the day, one of my first big shows was a show called Nip/Tuck that was about plastic surgery, and I was amazed at how taboo it was to talk about it,” Murphy added. “People changed their bodies, and they got in public and acted like nothing had changed. That was how you did it back then.”

“Now I think people sort of flaunt it more and are talking about it. It’s an evolution in some strange way,” Murphy further said.

Nip/Tuck, starring Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon and Joely Richardson, premiered on FX in 2003.

The show aired for six seasons through 2010. Each episode showed graphic depictions of plastic surgery procedures on the fictional company’s clientele, and also followed the doctors’ complicated personal lives.  

The series won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup and a Golden Globe for Best Drama Series.

Murphy went on to create other popular shows, including Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, 9-1-1 and more. 

His latest show, The Beauty, was co-created with Matt Hodgson and is based on the comic book series by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley.

According to a synopsis, the show follows a sexually transmitted virus that “makes those affected more beautiful, but with deadly consequences.”

The series stars Anthony Ramos, Ashton Kutcher, Evan Peters, Jeremy Pope and Rebecca Hall.

Speaking about the forthcoming show at the Comic Con panel, Murphy told the audience, “It has amazing action sequences. It has a lot of body horror. It has a great love story. It has a great buddy-comedy thing going on, and it has a great villain.”

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“It has a combination of really heightened genres, which is inherent in the source material, but it was a lot of fun to work on that tone,” he added.

The Beauty will air on FX in 2026.