What Happened to Mikaela Shiffrin's Eyebrow? In Candid Video, Ski Star Explains

If you see Mikaela Shiffrin missing part of her eyebrow at the Winter Olympics, no, you didn’t.

Known for being candid, the American ski racing superstar explained the situation on social media.

Shiffrin has an eyebrow scar. In the past, while she was doing balance training, she said, she “fell off the balance thing.” That caused her eyebrow to split open. Thirty stitches followed.

Now, Shiffrin said, sometimes her eyebrow hairs “grow a little bit funky”—she compared their growth to truffula trees, the fictional, woolly foliage from Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.

Shiffrin got sick of dealing with the hairs and started thinking.

“What if, rather than letting my hairs grow and cover the scar, I embrace the scar?” she said. “You know, just shave a little slash.”

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She went for it. But, she said, “I did a little bit of extra trimming” and went too far.

With makeup, it’s hard to tell. Shiffrin, though, noted that she sweats predominantly from her eyebrows and upper lip. And the makeup comes off when she sweats.

So, there is, she said, a “high likelihood that I’m going to cross the finish line and I’ll just have half an eyebrow.” 

How big is the chunk of removed hair, though? At the end of her video, Shiffrin wiped off the makeup, showing that you can, indeed, tell that part of her eyebrow has vanished.

The moral of the story? We’ll let Shiffrin take it from here.

“If you see me in the next few weeks at the Olympics with half an eyebrow, no, you didn’t,” she said. “You know what I mean?”

Complete eyebrow or not, Shiffrin is considered the best alpine ski racer on the planet. 

Her stats are dizzying. She’s won 108 races in the World Cup, alpine skiing’s professional circuit, owning a significant lead over the second-place record holder, Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. She’s also claimed three Olympic medals, one at the 2014 Games and two at the 2018 Games. 

Shiffrin’s set to compete in the upcoming giant slalom (February 15) and slalom races (February 18) as she angles for another piece of Olympic hardware.