25-year-old influencer with dentures says she can’t get a boyfriend
No, she doesn’t bite — and that’s apparently the problem.
TikTok influencer Lily Magno has opened up about her journey of not only accepting her dentures but also making them her brand.
Unfortunately, it seems not everyone is so accepting.
Magno got dentures last year after her gums became infected due to a skateboarding accident when she was 13. But while she has fully adjusted to the change, it has negatively affected her love life.
The hardest part: having to remove them on dinner dates.
“One time I was on a date, and when I took my teeth out to eat, they acted repulsed,” she told Caters News Agency. “It used to bother me knowing guys would judge me based on my content and teeth.”
Luckily for Magno, 25, she has since found the strength to dismiss “negative encounters with guys I’m interested in.” Now if someone she’s on a date with reacts negatively when she takes out her teeth, “It just proves to me that they’re too immature.
“I don’t worry too much about finding love in the future, because whoever I end up with won’t care — and I want someone who will embrace my flaws,” she said.
However, the journey to this point has been a long one and, initially, she even thought her influencer career goals were dashed.
“One of my biggest dreams was to work towards becoming a model, work in social media and maybe even work in entertainment, but I felt like those dreams had vanished when I got dentures,” the New Jersey native told Caters of the initial shame she felt about getting artificial teeth following the accident.
“I was with my friend, and we were messing around and both skateboarding on one board,” she recalled of the life-altering incident. She was wearing a helmet and had braces at the time, but her friend “used my face to break her fall,” damaging the braces, which caused severe gum damage. She didn’t lose any teeth at the time, but the trauma to her gums proved long-lasting.
‘I was mortified — dentures at 24 years old!’
TikTok influencer Lily Magno
“Apparently, when you have trauma to your face and teeth, problems can arise later on, so sure enough, 10 years later, I had an infection growing on one side and resorption on the other,” she explained. “My gum tissue was eating away at one of the roots of my teeth thinking it was an infection, while the infection was actually harming the teeth on the other side.”
As a result, she lost three of her front teeth in a matter of years, beginning in 2018, leaving her in need of a removable tooth retainer, as there was too much damage for her to get implants.
She also lost her mojo.
“I was mortified — dentures at 24 years old!” she said. “I went from being excited about freelance photo shoots and making content to canceling all of my shoots and taking a step back from social media.”
By this past January, though, Magno instead decided to try embracing her dental dilemma — and started riffing about it in clips for her 467,000-plus TikTok followers.
“I began making my fake teeth my niche,” she said. “The amount of people contacting me and commenting, saying they wish they had my confidence or that they could relate, was crazy!”
Now, she said, “I love having dentures” — and she has also embraced posting unfiltered, no-makeup content as well.
Indeed, that has become her main motto: “If I could spread one message, it would be to embrace your flaws, because it’s what makes you unique.”
