Cameron Diaz Calls Out Toxic Beauty Standards

Beauty

| LAST UPDATE 03/15/2022

By Georgina White
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Remember Cameron Diaz? While she was once a rom-com staple of the early 2000s, the Bad Teacher actress took a serious step back from Hollywood life in recent years. And the distance has given her some life-changing clarity about the negative aspects of life in the public eye... Most importantly, the negative energy around beauty and aging for actresses.

The 49-year-old former actress got real during a recent appearance on BBC's Rule Breakers podcast, in which she spilled all her newfound wisdom to Michelle Visage. Cameron has had quite a bit of time to think, having not appeared in a Hollywood project since the 2014 adaptation of Annie. And looking back, the public pressure definitely affected her during her career. "I am absolutely a victim to all of the societal objectification and exploitations that women are subjected to," she confessed. "I have bought into all of them myself at certain times." Whether it was tabloid headlines or celebrity gossip, Diaz found it all too hard to escape. "It's hard not to look at yourself and judge yourself against other markers of beauty, and I think that that's one of the biggest things," she continued. But the growth didn't happen overnight...

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"The last eight years, girl - I'm like wild," she gushed to her interviewer. "You start to pick yourself apart, you know," Cameron admitted, looking back. "And you're like, 'Why am I sitting here like being so mean to myself? My body's strong, my body's capable. Why am I going to talk down to it? Why am I going to be mean to it when it's like carried me this far?'" While it may have taken close to a decade to get there, it's clear that Cameron isn't looking back on her journey to self-acceptance. And her stance is a fresh breath of air in a world of overwhelming beauty standards. Now, her appearance is "literally, the last thing [she thinks] about on a daily basis." Talk about inspiring!

If you want to hear more about Cameron's approach to beauty, you can listen to the whole interview with Michelle Visage online here. And stay tuned for more from the world of beauty!

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