Phil Murphy is almost unrecognizable: Check out the before & after

I’ve written before about Phil Murphy’s obvious desire to modify his appearance before he runs for president. No one knows if it’s his decision to do so, or if the people advising him are directing him to change to a more “presidential“ look, but here’s the thing.

It’s starting to look a little unusual. And I don’t mean it in an insulting way. It’s not that he doesn’t look better. In fact, it’s not a matter of better or worse— he just looks….unusual.

What I find strange about the whole thing is that it’s such a dramatic difference and yet it has never been addressed. It’s akin to slipping in a new actor to play a role on a show that you’ve been watching for 20 years and expecting people to accept it with no explanation. (“Bewitched’s” Darrin Stevens, anyone?)

At any rate, the difference was shocking when I saw Phil Murphy’s latest Twitter photo and an updated look on a screen grab from Twitter, where he looks positively unidentifiable. I couldn’t decide which celebrity I thought he looked like.

On this video, he’s a cross between Phil Spector, Steve Buscemi, and Aaron Paul—Jesse from breaking bad.

And again, it’s not an entirely unattractive look. It’s just an entirely different face somehow. Not only is the new hair, which appears to be some sort of transplant, fluffed up in a new 'do, but I think whoever is advising him has actually helped to improve his features by telling him not to smile as broadly — thus softening the look of his teeth (formerly a not so attractive focal point) and making him seem more approachable. It’s actually overall an improvement. It’s just a stark difference — check it out.

Here are screen grabs from a video he posted to Twitter, which makes him look much younger almost Moppet-like.

In this before and after you can see how he’s modified his smile, resulting in a much softer, more approachable, look:

Before

After

I could not for the life of me figure out who he looks like now. When I ran him through a celebrity, look-alike app, they told me he looked like Aaron Paul. Ya know, the Breaking Bad star?

Suffice it to say, the governor has changed and in my opinion for the better. I’d love to know what you guys think.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.

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