Revealed: The Shocking Truth Behind 'Zombie Angelina Jolie'
Remember the woman who went viral in 2017 for looking like a corpse version of Angelina Jolie ? Well, it turns out she looks nothing like that and never really did - although most people would have found that pretty obvious from the start. Sahar Tabar, whose real name is Fatemeh Khishvand, is a 25-year-old Iranian woman who became one of the most talked-about people on the internet after posting a series of photos on Instagram that made her look like Jolie had been dug up and reanimated. Sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, a skeletal face that launched a thousand headlines about 'botched plastic surgery' and '50 operations gone wrong'. None of that was true. She used makeup and Photoshop - pretty simple really when you think about it. However, the Iranian government didn't see the funny side, and what happened next was about as far from funny as it gets. Tabar used Photoshop to alter her appearance. Credit: Instagram/sahartabar_official What happened to Sahar Tabar? In October 2019, when she was 18, Iranian authorities arrested her as part of a crackdown on social media influencers. She was charged with blasphemy, inciting violence, encouraging youth corruption, and gaining income through inappropriate means. Iran has some of the strictest internet censorship laws in the world and routinely targets people who are seen to be promoting things it doesn't like. In December 2020, she fell foul of those strict rules and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 10 years, all for posting edited photos of herself on Instagram. While inside, she caught Covid-19 and was reportedly put on a ventilator. Her lawyers pushed for her release on medical grounds. A judge refused that appeal, leading Iranian journalist and women's rights activist Masih Alinejad to publicly call on Angelina Jolie herself to intervene, writing that Tabar's mother 'cries every day' for her daughter. She was eventually released on bail in mid-December 2020, having served around 14 or 15 months. Alinejad confirmed the news on Twitter: "Today Iranian teenager who posted heavily distorted images of herself online and was jailed for 10 years has been freed after massive media pressure." Tabar's Instagram has now been deleted. Credit: Instagram/sahartabar_official What does she actually look like? After her release, Tabar appeared on Rokna, an Iranian state-owned media channel, and showed her real face for the first time. People were genuinely shocked. She looked like a completely normal young woman. She had no skeletal features, no sunken cheeks, and - crucially - nothing remotely zombie-like. Again, most people figured that way before, but it's still a bit of a shock. She explained on the programme that her mother had told her to stop posting the images but she hadn't listened. "Sometimes the words of a stranger or a friend can be more important than those of a parent," she said. She described her posts as a 'vulgarity' that helped her become famous, but said she would not be going back to Instagram. "I would not even put Instagram on my phone anymore," she said. The interview left viewers stunned . "Omg it was makeup thank god," one wrote. Another said: "Wow! It's so sad what lengths people would go to for fame. They should have tackled her body dysmorphia rather than an uncalled-for prison sentence." Tabar's real appearance has come as a surprise. Credit: YouTube/Rokna Was any of it real? For the most part, no. In a 2017 interview with Russian outlet Sputnik before her arrest, Tabar had already admitted the images were created using makeup and digital editing. She said she did it to 'amuse' herself. "Now I can see that I have something in common with her, but I amuse myself, and to look like someone is not my goal," she explained. "Over time I post a photo, I make my face more fun and funny. It is a form of self-expression, a kind of art." She did have some cosmetic work done. A nose job, lip fillers, and liposuction have all been confirmed. But the full zombie look that went viral was makeup, lighting, and Photoshop. The '50 surgeries' story that circulated at the time was never true. Where is Sahar Tabar now? She deleted her Instagram profile in 2019 before her arrest. Iran has since banned Instagram entirely, along with Facebook, X, and most other major Western social media platforms. Tabar has not returned to public life in any significant way since the Rokna interview. She would now be 25 years old. Whether she is still in Iran, still subject to the conditions of her bail, or has moved on entirely from the persona that made her famous and then cost her over a year of her life is not publicly known. What is known is that an 18-year-old girl posted some edited photos of herself on Instagram, went viral, and was arrested by her own government for it. She spent over a year in prison, caught Covid, came out the other side, showed the world her real face, and said she was done with social media for good. The photos were fake, but the prison sentence was very real. Featured image credit: Instagram/Sahar Tabar