Jamie Lee Curtis has been working in Hollywood for nearly five decades. She was also born into Hollywood royalty as the daughter of stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
That’s why it came as a surprise when Curtis spoke out in a new interview to call out the “fakery” of Hollywood. She also spoke out against plastic surgery, something she’s admitted to having experience with in the past.
Curtis Slams Hollywood ‘Fakery’
While appearing on “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson” on Wednesday, Curtis, 67, discussed the “fakery” of Hollywood. She then revealed how she “succumbed” to pressures from the industry to look a certain way before she finally learned to love herself as she aged.
“[Expletive] happens, aging happens,” Curtis said. “I mean, it’s coming for all of us, by the way.”
“But that’s not what Hollywood is all about,” replied Michelle Obama, 62.
“It’s not just Hollywood,” Curtis responded. “It’s also the technology, it’s also social media, it’s also filtering, it’s what we used to call airbrushing is now just filtering, it’s all fakery.”
Curtis then said that “it’s just the fakery, it’s the cosmeceutical industrial complex, which is as insidious in many ways as the military industrial complex is about money. So it’s just about [expletive] money, right?”
“And it’s the idea that you’re going to tell someone that ‘this is going to change you and make you better, and therefore, better means you’ll be more loved, you’ll be more successful,'” Curtis added. “So it’s this cycle of [expletive], but it preys on our base insecurities. For many people, it’s what they look like.”
Curtis’ Self-Esteem Issues
Curtis went on to claim that she’s “never been pretty.” However, she’s learned over the years that plastic surgery procedures will never fix the core issue, which is self-esteem.
“Now, I’ve never been pretty,” Curtis insisted. “And I’m saying it out loud. I wasn’t pretty like that, I wasn’t pretty the way girls are pretty. I was cute, I can look good, I can fully look good, but that was not my ticket. And that’s very important for me because that was never the thing I relied on.”
“I have succumbed, and have talked about it many times, to trying all the things,” the Oscar-winner confessed. “I’ve sucked the fat, I’ve cut the fat. I’ve tried to do the things that people do that everybody’s doing, and it doesn’t work. There are many things that happen.”
“It doesn’t work, first of all, because of the self-esteem issue,” she added. “Because you ultimately are looking in the mirror and realizing you’ve used something outside of yourself to change something to make you ‘better.’ But you’re not better because you’re still the same person as you were before.”
Curtis then warned about the devastating impact that this can have on someone.
“I think it actually makes you feel fraudulent, and I think that it creates self-hatred,” she lameted. “And for me, accepting that I look the way I look is part of self-love.”
Curtis Fights Back
Curtis addressed these issues back in 2002 in her children’s book “I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem.” While promoting it, she decided to pose in her underwear completely unfiltered for a photoshoot. Curtis explained why she did this in her new interview.
“I realized I was a liar,” she recalled. “Because if I was paying attention to what I wrote [in my children’s book], I wouldn’t have done plastic surgery. I wouldn’t have done liposuction.”
“So I said, you know what? I’m going to take a picture of me in my undies with no good light, no makeup, no hair,” Curtis remembered. “I’m going to stand there au natural, and you’re going to take my picture, and then you’re going to let me get all dolled up, but you’re going to have to print those two pictures side by side, and you’re going to have to say how long it took, how much money it took, how many people were involved.”
“But that was even then me understanding that what we’re selling is fraudulent,” Curtis concluded.
After nearly a half century of experience in Hollywood, a place where she also grew up, Curtis knows a thing or two about what she’s talking about here. We applaud her for having the guts to use her platform to call out this industry and to promote self-love.
God bless you, Jamie Lee Curtis!