Last week, Hailey Bieber hit back at claims she has undergone cosmetic surgery on her face after an Instagram account insinuated that she had. Posting a side by side comparison of Bieber now and when she was 13, the account captioned it: “What a transformation” alongside an eye-rolling emoji. In the more recent image, Bieber’s lips look much fuller, her eyes less hooded, her nose more pointed and her chin more sculpted. She responded in the comments to deny the charge claiming that the image had been photoshopped.

“Stop using pics that are edited by make-up artists! This photo on the right is NOT what I look like,” she wrote. “I've never touched my face so if you're gonna sit around and compare me at 13 and then me at 23, at least use a natural photo that wasn’t edited so crazy.”

But the story didn’t end there. In response to this denial, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon took to his TikTok account to counter her claims. Dr Daniel Barrett posted a video comparing two images of Bieber saying that he thought the transformation was “physically impossible” without the help of someone like himself. Telling viewers to examine particularly how the position of her nose changes, Dr Barrett suggested she has undergone rhinoplasty as well as several other procedures including lip fillers, cheek filler, and a chin implant.

In response to this, Bieber and husband Justin have threatened to take legal action against Dr Barrett. Attorneys for the two have sent a cease and desist letter – obtained by E! News – to the doctor accusing him of using Bieber’s “name, image, and likeness” to “commercially advertise your plastic surgery practice and to spread false, uncorroborated claims that Mrs Bieber has undergone plastic surgery.” He is also accused of using “copyrighted protected lyrics” from Justin’s song “Sorry” in his caption which reads “Is it too late now to say sorry...”

The letter claims Dr Barrett’s video constitutes defamation and slander among other violations and demands that he issue a public statement retracting the claims and remove the post.

Dr Barrett, however, is standing by his remarks. In a statement to E! News he said: “The purpose of my TikTok account is to increase the transparency of plastic surgery and to educate people about plastic surgery. The purpose of the video was not to disparage Hailey Bieber in any way, the purpose of my video was to share my opinion about the procedures that I believed she may have had done based on photos alone. This is at the request of many of my viewers who follow me for this type of information and for my opinion.”