The Oscar-winning actress shocked the world earlier this week when she appeared in a red carpet event for the first time in years - and due to Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014, the actress looked practically unrecognizable.

Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014 is the talk of the town in Hollywood and beyond, but the actress hasn't either confirmed or denied the rumors - but she certainly looks quite different now than she did a few years ago, back when her last film, "My Own Love Song," was released.

Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014 rumors began when she appeared at Elle's Women in Hollywood awards last Monday night, according to Slate magazine.

After a critically successful career that has spanned over two decades (she first started acting in her early to mid 20s), Zellweger is a household name all over the world ... but, in the Los Angeles event earlier this week, it seemed nobody would recognize who she was!

According to experts quoted by UK's The Mirror, it seems Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014 has been an ongoing process that has meant a lot of chirurgical processes over the years, since she was last seen on red carpet shows.

Seemingly, Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014 includes procedures such as fillers around her nasolabial folds and cheeks (for her face to get a fuller appearance), Botox around the brow area to make her skin look more youthful and blepharoplasty (which removes the bags under the eyes and reduces lids), a process that has made her eyes more open and perhaps created the big change everyone is shocked at: Zellweger's small eyes and pouty lips were always what made the actress most recognizable.

News of Zellweger's plastic surgery have created two opposing streams in the media: one, wondering about what happened to her face and the other saying that Renée Zellweger's plastic surgery of 2014 is proof of the Hollywood system that is sure to dismiss actresses past a certain age, no matter how talented they might be, only because they're unable to maintain the same looks they had when they were in their 20s.