Jamie Lee Curtis got brutally honest to The Guardian about “the genocide of a generation of women by the cosmeceutical industrial complex, who’ve disfigured themselves.” In other words, plastic surgery. The Oscar winner showed up to the magazine shoot with big red wax lips as commentary on this “genocide,” a word she uses with clear intention.
“I’ve used that word for a long time and I use it specifically because it’s a strong word,” Curtis explained. “I believe that we have wiped out a generation or two of natural human [appearance].”
Curtis continued, “The concept that you can alter the way you look through chemicals, surgical procedures, fillers — there’s a disfigurement of generations of predominantly women who are altering their appearances. And it is aided and abetted by AI, because now the filter face is what people want. I’m not filtered right now. The minute I lay a filter on and you see the before and after, it’s hard not to go: ‘Oh, well that looks better.’ But what’s better? Better is fake. And there are too many examples – I will not name them – but very recently we have had a big onslaught through media, many of those people.”
Plastic surgery runs rampant through Hollywood, but Curtis said “I don’t care” about co-stars or famous friends going under the knife. She is not one to judge anybody for their choices.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not proselytizing to them,” Curtis said. “I would never say a word. I would never say to someone: what have you done? All I know is that it is a never-ending cycle. That, I know. Once you start, you can’t stop. But it’s not my job to give my opinion; it’s none of my business.”
Curtis has largely avoided plastic surgery, although she did reveal to “60 Minutes” earlier this year that she got cosmetic surgery when she was 25 years old after a cinematographer refused to shoot her on a movie set because he didn’t like her face. Curtis said she regrets her decision to this day. The movie was 1985’s “Perfect,” directed by James Bridges and co-starring John Travolta.
“I took it very seriously as an actor,” Curtis said of the film, in which she played an aerobics instructor who meets a journalist (Travolta) during his investigation into fitness clubs.
The film’s cinematographer criticized the way she looked, with Curtis explaining: “He was like, ‘I am not shooting her today because her eyes are baggy.’ I was 25. For him to say that was very embarrassing. As soon as the movie finished, I ended up having some plastic surgery.”
When asked how the surgery went, Curtis answered: “Not well. That’s just not what you want to do when you’re 25 or 26. I regretted immediately and have regretted it since. [I regret it] way so now because I’ve become a really public advocate to women to say, ‘You’re gorgeous and perfect the way you are.’ It was not a good thing for me to do… They give you pain killers. I became very enamored with the warm bath of an oipiod. Drank a little bit. I was very quiet and private about it. But it became a dependency for sure.”
Curtis next stars in Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” in theaters Aug. 8.
