When you’re a member of the Trump Administration and you appear on Fox News, you better have all of your ducks in a row and your makeup done perfectly. Otherwise, no one will really pay attention to what you’re saying; they’ll focus on how you look instead. Sorry, Kash Patel, but that is the way of the world when you align yourself with someone who also has critics across social media.
In a clip on X from his appearance on Fox News to discuss his and Trump’s changes to the FBI, something looks off about the way he looks. It seems like his eyebrows were filled in before he went on camera, and his eyebrow makeup was accidentally smeared. And people noticed right away.
Kash Patel’s eyebrows came into question after his Fox News appearance.
Person doing his eyebrow makeup must have tripped and fell https://t.co/2Z3MtWXmVo
— evan loves worf (@esjesjesj) September 16, 2026
As if Patel’s eyes weren’t already expressive enough, it looks like he needed someone to fill in his eyebrows during his Fox News appearance. Or maybe, he always has them filled in, but the bright lights cause his skin to get a little oily and thus, his eyebrow mascara or other eyebrow makeup got smudged. We’ve all been there.
But, fortunately for the rest of us, we are not tasked with talking up Trump and the FBI while also appearing on live TV with smudged makeup. So Patel’s message, which included slamming Democrats for accomplishing goals with the department that Democratic leaders could not, was sort of lost on those who could not look away from those eyebrows.
“Sounds like he sneezed mid-eyebrow application,” one person commented on the X post. “Also, what did he do to his eyes? Why aren’t they dilated?”
Another person joked, “I thought it was something on my phone screen lol.”
“Bro is such a creep that even his eyebrows are trying to escape!” Someone else added.
“Love that they let him go on air like that,” an X user also commented.
At the same time, Kash Patel referred to himself in the third person.
The other big takeaway from the Fox News clip is how Patel says what he says in relation to his work as FBI director. He speaks in third person, almost like he is reading from a script that was not edited to be spoken from his perspective as first person. Or maybe he really is entering a new chapter of speaking in the third person, a la The Rock from the WWE back in the day. I mean, he has the arched eyebrow to match now.
“Most importantly, we removed the institutionalization that these Democrats were barking about for years, and President Trump and Director Kash Patel and his team have delivered what they never could,” Patel says in the clip on X. “And the fact that we delivered it is ticking them off more than anything they could possibly think of.”
Don’t get his critics started on his eyes.
This is Kash Patel’s official photo. Seriously, can anyone explain why he has bug eyes?
— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) September 16, 2026
I’ve seen no public reporting that he suffers from thyroid eye disease, so I honestly don’t get it. pic.twitter.com/L69eeBaq5M
When Patel was named as the director of the FBI, he became an instant target for jokes from people who don’t support Trump and for pop culture references in general, including Saturday Night Live. And the one physical aspect that many focus on is Patel’s large round eyes that, to some, seem to look like they are almost bulging out of his face at times.
Someone even posted on Reddit to ask what the deal is with Patel.
“Almost every photo of him his eyes are bugging out of his head. It’s incredibly bizarre. However there’s a few photos where his eyes are normal, so it’s not just how he looks,” the user wrote in the post. “So what’s the explanation exactly?”
Some users suggested drug use, and others speculated about some diagnosis that Patel did not share with the public. But it might be best if he makes sure his eyebrow makeup doesn’t draw more attention to his eyes in the future.
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