The Incredible Shrinking Women

Has Hollywood gone overboard on Ozempic?

Hello, Gorgeous!

While I’ve been quoted pretty much everywhere on a wide variety of topics, I had not yet made it to Page Six of the New York Post…until earlier this week, that is.

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t going to share this covetable clip for various reasons. I don’t love the quotes attributed to me, and my name is misspelled, but I don’t care much about those things. What I wasn’t entirely comfortable with was the idea that I might be perceived as judging other women’s bodies. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. In this article I basically am quoted on offering tips on making an Ozempic face (so called because of the gaunt look after drastic weight loss) or post-facelift face look fuller.

Are the rules different when it comes to judging celebrities?

One of my missions in life is to empower women and make them feel beautiful. While I might privately feel gossipy about a particularly unattractive frock showing up on the red carpet, or a star’s overzealous use of injectables, I tend to be very careful about not publicly sharing my opinion on the drastic changes in a celebrity’s face or body. And it’s not limited to the ladies of Hollywood. We all know the leading men are nipping, tucking, and injecting— it’s just less obvious in a tux than a form-fitting gown.

A culture of denial

When working as a celeb makeup artist, I’d sometimes have surreal moments when working on a famous face. I’d see angry red or swollen scars from facelifts or drastic procedures that needed more time to heal. But when I tried to comment or ask if Celeb X needed more time before I applied their makeup, they’d stare blankly at me and deny any procedure had occurred.

I don’t write about plastic surgery. I try to publicly avoid the Ozempic conversation, but in Hollywood it’s hard to miss. And I feel that at a certain point it is important to speak up.

The incredibly unreal celebrity ideal

The modern celebrity ideal often involves massive amounts of plastic surgery, artful glow-up teams of makeup artists and hair stylists, fashion stylists choosing their wardrobes, excellent lighting, filters, wigs, implants or fat removal, and now, semaglutides like Ozempic and Mounjaro.

It isn’t real. For a time we knew this. But now the lines between celebrities changing to appear one way on camera, and young women having face lifts to look more snatched on their Instagram selfies have become dangerously blurred.

What we’re seeing increasingly are famous bodies that were once starved thin, or displaying implants everywhere along with aggressively rounded curves, using prescription medication to bypass thinness for a look that can only be described as gaunt. And while that’s nothing I discussed in the article I referenced above, it isn’t a healthy ideal for women or young girls looking for celebrity role models. And who are we kidding? Boys growing up seeing famous bodies— at home, on film, or online —scraped away to their literal bare bones grow up to believe this exemplifies beauty.

And that’s a conversation we need all to be having.

Is Ozempic a topic you feel comfortable discussing? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic of Hollywood’s shrinking women and more. Let’s meet in the comment section to discuss.

Rachel, Your beauty concierge 💋