‘Awful On Purpose’: Trump Finally Gets the Recognition, Instead of Celebrating, He Melts Down Over One Detail While Fans Spot Another That’s Worse
Donald Trump is fuming over an unflattering photo of him that was used for his Time magazine cover.
The Republican politician was chosen for the cover following his administration’s success in brokering a peace agreement between two countries.
Trump’s portrait was taken from below, highlighting the loose skin on his neck, and the glare of the sun that shone from behind his head made his combover hair appear wispy and sparse. For this, Trump unleashed his frustrations over the image in a scathing post on Truth Social.
On Oct. 13, he began, “Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time. They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one.”
Trump continued to remark, saying it was “really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”
Online hecklers shared a different sentiment about his cover. One person asked, “Do any current good photos of him exist? He’s orange, unattractive, weird neck and body and his hair is weird and stringy.”
“Does a photo of his hair looking good really exist??” asked another.
Zooming in on his loose skin, one person noted, “He’s got a yard of Turkey skin tucked under that collar and a pound of makeup on that wrinkled [body] of his. So effeminately aged.”
President Trump accuses Time magazine of deliberately using the worst photo ‘of all time’ on a cover praising his peace deal https://t.co/o9P8Xa7StG pic.twitter.com/m4kVlZ5zqT
— New York Post (@nypost) October 14, 2025
One critic surmised, “He has no idea what he really looks like- glaring earmark of narcissistic personality disorder. Another said, “Oh lol. Is that second picture the one he’s complaining about?! Because that is awful on purpose!”
On X, a user suggested that Trump was incapable of accepting praise. They wrote:
“Classic Trump move — turning a compliment into combat. Time drops a cover praising his peace deal, and instead of soaking it in, he’s mad about the photo. It’s peak Trump energy: the man could be holding a Nobel Prize and still complain about the lighting. It’s wild, but that’s exactly why his headlines never miss — even praise turns into spectacle when he’s involved.”
— Pam Hurd (@1_love22) October 10, 2025
The president lost out on the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. He claimed that Machado personally told him she was “accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.”
But that didn’t stop late-night talk show hosts and comedians from mocking Trump for not winning the award he’s been crying about for months.
Trump’s obsession with his image and winning is nothing new, but this latest outburst over the Time magazine cover not going his way only highlights how deeply personal and erratic his self-perception can be. Even in the face of recognition for his diplomatic efforts, the former president found a way to focus on the one thing that irks him most—his appearance.