Mary-Kate Olsen Is Nearly Unrecognizable Since Ditching Hollywood

The plight of anyone who spent their childhood under the steady glare of public recognition is that they have to grow up in front of everyone else. Every flicker of change, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, gets examined under the microscope and tirelessly picked apart. This is certainly true for the likes of Selena Gomez, who has had a stunning transformation since her "Barney & Friends" days. It's also true for the Obama sisters, whose own transformations since leaving the White House have inevitably been chronicled. Former "Fun House" star Mary-Kate Olsen, and famous twin Ashley Olsen, too, can speak to that same phenomenon.

With the Olsen twins long absent from the churn of television and film, their public appearances have become scarce. The sisters have become apparitions in the cultural consciousness, surfacing only now and then. At the 2025 US Open in New York City, Mary-Kate reappeared, looking striking and almost unrecognizable. There, she wore a loose, dark paisley shawl draped over a simple blouse, like the classic boho muse she's always been. Her hair boasted a muted chestnut shade, darker than her childhood honey-blonde, and far removed from the platinum phases of her early 20s (placing her among the celebs who can pull off dark and light hair colors flawlessly). With little more than the faintest wash of makeup, her look emphasized how far she's come from her adolescent years — a far cry from the curated child star that audiences once knew. 

Mary-Kate Olsen's appearance at the US Open drew such attention because Olsen sightings have become increasingly rare. After their youthful careers on-screen, the sisters stepped back from the spotlight, carefully choosing where they would be seen and who with. This echoes what she and Ashley told i-D Magazine: that they were "discreet people — that's how we were raised." 

That discretion extended into Mary-Kate's personal life. When she divorced Olivier Sarkozy in 2020, the story seeped out through court filings and whispers, fragmented and incomplete. Olsen filed for divorce in New York's Supreme Court with the simple statement that "the relationship has broken down irretrievably." Beyond that, she offered nothing to the press. Fans and tabloids were left to parse rumors: one account in Page Six claimed that at the onset of the pandemic, Sarkozy moved his mother, children, and ex-wife into the couple's Hamptons home. Another suggested to the gossip site that the split was nothing more than a slow erosion. "Sometimes couples just run their course," one source said. "The plan to move in his family was his way of moving on, and the final straw for Mary-Kate."

The Olsen twins may have ceded Hollywood, but did so to claim another industry: fashion. Their label, The Row, began as a search for the perfect T-shirt and became one of the most influential houses of its generation. With its calculated minimalism and cult following, the brand has become synonymous with quiet luxury. "To be able to take from our past experiences, whether it was from the beginning of our life, or career, or life today, has definitely been beneficial," sister Mary-Kate told the Financial Times in 2023, noting that anonymity itself had become its own form of luxury. The brand, just like this current iteration of Mary-Kate herself, has been built out of retreat.