Source: Benjamin Solomon / Getty
Retired NFL Giants defensive end Michael Strahan is known for his warm teddy bear nature and for always flashing that large grin to show off his signature diastema, which is the technical term for a prominent gap between your front teeth. But the two-time Super Bowl champ and Good Morning America host went on social media yesterday and shared a video of his visit to the dentist’s chair to close the gap just ahead of April Fool’s Day.
In the minute-long clip, Strahan met with Dr. Lee Gause, DDS of Smile Design Manhattan, to share how everyone else in his life might try to discourage him from going through with the procedure. Then he turned to the doctor, however, and said, “I gotta do what I wanna do for myself… the moment [of truth] 50 years in the making…”
From the current looks of things, Strahan appeared thrilled with the end result and immediately took to New York City’s streets so he could parade his new set of choppers, ala Gucci Mane or DaBaby. And since posting that video, Strahan has received support all over his IG page, including from the likes of fellow NFL veteran Troy Aikman (“Good for you!”) and WWE’s Nikki Bella (“Smile is still a million bucks! 😁”).
Strahan’s gap is such an inseparable part of his brand at this point that it was captured even by Archie Comics and The Simpsons. “I was in my twenties. I was playing with the Giants. There’s so much pressure to be perfect. You can fix everything now,” he told Elle in 2012. “For me, I made the conscious effort to say ‘This is who I am.’ I’m not perfect. I don’t want to try to be perfect. At this point, I don’t think my kids would recognize me without it. They’d be like, ‘Who is this stranger in the house? Call 911!’”
But not everyone is sure that Strahan’s job was for real – or happy that it happened, either. In fact, the timing of it seems suspect given that, one week earlier, he wrote on IG that he “rock[s] my gap with pride! It’s who I am!” Strahan then posted marked-up photos of other celebs like Deion Sanders, The Rock, and also his GMA buddies reimagined with tooth gaps of their own. But some of his other pals like Heidi Klum (“oh no 😮”) and former Giants teammate Justin Tuck (“April fools is tmrw”) are not with it.
Let’s wait to see by week’s end if perhaps Mr. Tuck knows something we don’t, but check out how Twitter reacted below.
