Cameron Diaz explained that her relationship to beauty and aging has changed substantially since she stepped away from Hollywood in 2014 to focus on her family.
The former actress made an appearance on Michelle Visage‘s new BBC podcast, Rule Breakers, to discuss her career, her life, and her state of mind as she approaches her 50th birthday. When discussing the topic of vanity, Diaz confessed, “I am absolutely a victim to all of the societal objectification and exploitations that women are subjected to. I have bought into all of them myself at certain times.” She continued, “It’s hard not to, 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…The last eight years, girl—I’m like wild. I’m like a wild animal, like a beast!”
But Diaz noted that she much prefers looking a little “wild” to the “toxic” experience of sitting in front of the mirror for hours every day obsessing over her appearance during her days as a top actress. “You just start to pick yourself apart, you know,” she said. “And you’re like, ‘Why I am 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?’” However, she’s come a long way since then towards embracing who she is. “I don’t care. Literally, the last thing I think about on a daily basis—like maybe not at all during the day—is what I look like,” The Mask star confessed.
She added that despite owning roughly “a billion products” from the skincare and cosmetics department, “I literally do nothing. I like never wash my face…,” she explained. “Twice a month if I’m lucky, I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I better put this on. One time works, right?’ Like is that all I have to do? I’m just not in that place right now like where I put any energy.” Diaz isn’t stressing about trying to look eternally youthful, as she approaches her 50th birthday this August, she says the only thing that’s important to her is to “stay strong.”
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