‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Star’s Deformed Face After ‘Allergic Reaction’ Shocks Onlookers

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney recently shocked onlookers with his deformed face after an “allergic reaction.” Over on Instagram, McElhenney shared a collection of photos from 2023, including one of himself from the set of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia where he donned makeup that made him look like he’d had an allergic reaction. This definitely took some of his followers by surprise.

“Aside from that slight allergic reaction to the nuts, 2023 was one of the best years of my life. Thank you to the people and places that made it possible. My life is full of love and joy because of you. So excited for 2024. I’ll stay away from the nuts,” McElhenney wrote in the caption. In response to the jarring photo, McElhenney got a lot of responses, including one from Mindy Kaling who commented, “Rob this made me almost drop my phone. My son screamed.” The FX Networks account added, “Fancy nuts and Welsh holidays, what could be better?” This is a reference to the episode in which McElhenney sported the fake swallow head prosthetics.

This is not McElhenney’s first It’s Always Sunny… transformation to make headlines. In a previous season of the show, he gained 50 pounds only to turn around and lose it and focus on getting extremely in shape a few seasons later. “I feel like … every time a male actor takes his shirt off in a movie or television show they seem to look like a greek god out of nowhere,” McElhenney previously told Decider during the Television Critics Association’s summer tour. 

“I thought that is such a funny thing to explore if you have a character who has put in so much effort and energy to get as ripped as possible, and it literally took me months and months and months,” he continued. “And you show it off for essentially 45 seconds in one scene, and the [other] characters are not impressed. They tell you to put your shirt on. That seemed funny to me. It seems like a tremendous amount of effort for what amounts to 45 seconds of vanity and then it all goes away.”

In a 2018 Instagram post, McElhenney shared photos of his transformation side-by-side and joked about how he accomplished it. “Look, it’s not that hard,” he wrote. “All you need to do is lift weights six days a week, stop drinking alcohol, don’t eat anything after 7pm, don’t eat any carbs or sugar at all, in fact just don’t eat anything you like, get the personal trainer from Magic Mike, sleep nine hours a night, run three miles a day, and have a studio pay for the whole thing over a six to seven month span.” McElhenney then quipped, “I don’t know why everyone’s not doing this. It’s a super realistic lifestyle and an appropriate body image to compare oneself to.”