Helen Hunt Absolves Herself from Hollywood’s Obsession with Beauty

Veteran actor Helen Hunt isn’t shying away from the conversation surrounding beauty standards in Hollywood.

The 61-year-old As Good as It Gets star spoke candidly about the pressures actresses faced regarding their appearance in the 1990s because of celebrity tabloids.

“It felt impossible not to internalize the way you’re supposed to look,” Hunt recalled in a recent interview with Flow Space. “And [there was] a certain amount of misery and shame around not looking exactly that way.”

“I realized, ‘This could quietly ruin your whole life,’” she continued. “I made a decision: I’m not playing. Not gonna [let it] take up a lot of space in my mind.”

The Emmy and Golden Globe winner says the book, The Only Diet There Is, by spiritual leader Sondra Ray, allowed her to establish a healthy connection with food.

“What I took from it,” Hunt stated, “is eat what you want and love every bite, period.”

According to a 2023 AARP Survey of Women’s Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media of 7,000 adult women, 7 in 10 said they look inward to define their beauty instead of comparing themselves to others. This also reflected three-quarters of women 50 and older and two-thirds of women 18 to 49.

However, nearly the same percentage of women said most people judge their gender on external beauty. The number of people who felt this way remained the same — 71 percent — for women 18 to 49 and 50-plus.

Many of the survey’s women respondents say advertising and social media are the main entities determining beauty standards for women. Nearly half said those norms come from “what we see other women doing,” and a fifth said men also influence those standards.

Hunt’s comments about beauty standards in Hollywood are becoming increasingly prevalent. Over the past few years, many Hollywood stars have discussed having to adhere to certain beauty standards while aging in the spotlight.

Model-actor Brooke Shields, 60, who appeared on the cover of AARP The Magazine’s March/April 2024 issue, talked about the challenges of being in the spotlight and aging.

“You have to change the narrative,” she said. “It’s an affront to people if Brooke Shields gets older. You can’t grow up, you cannot age. It’s disappointing to them that I don’t have the same face I had when I was 16. But it’s been so liberating for me not to worry about it all the time.”

In 2023, former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, 57, attended Paris Fashion Week makeup-free, a move she says was about “self-acceptance.”

“There is beauty in self-acceptance, imperfection and love,” she wrote on Instagram previously.

Hollywood actor Salma Hayek Pinault, 58, a recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model, also shared her perspective on aging with AARP in 2021.

“Growing old, to me, has to do with repetition,” the Desperado star explained. “Something gets old when you’ve done it for a long time. ... If you’re always changing, if you’re always curious, how can you be old? You’re someone new today.”