Megyn Kelly reignited a fiery debate about Hollywood’s obsession with youth, beauty, and the pursuit of aesthetic perfection following Sunday night’s Oscars.
The former Fox News anchor delivered her unfiltered take on none other than Demi Moore – fresh off a widely debated Best Actress loss at the Academy Awards.
In a no-holds-barred monologue, Kelly dissected Moore’s ever-evolving appearance, suggesting that the 62-year-old actress was once again falling victim to the pressures of Hollywood’s beauty standards.
‘Demi Moore had some sort of strange thing done to her face a couple years ago… She looked shocking, there had been so much work, and then she went to a surgeon who undid that, and she looked much better. She started to look normal, just like a normal woman again, and she looked great,’ Kelly remarked.
‘And she’s starting to drift over again. It’s starting to happen again with the cheeks in particular… The cheeks are too much.’
The sharp commentary came in the wake of Moore’s stunning turn in The Substance, a film that eerily mirrors the very predicament Kelly describes: an aging woman in entertainment facing relentless scrutiny about her looks and relevance.
The film, which saw Moore embody the role of Elisabeth Sparkle, an aerobics instructor who injects herself with a youth serum to disastrous consequences, has been heralded as both a scathing satire and a dark mirror of Hollywood’s obsession with defying age.
And yet, despite sweeping nearly every major award leading up to Oscar night – including the Golden Globe, the SAG Award, and the Critics Choice Award – Moore was snubbed in favor of 25-year-old Mikey Madison, whose role as a sex worker in Anora seemingly stole the Academy’s affections at the last minute.
Podcaster and journalist Megyn Kelly reignited a fiery debate about Hollywood’s obsession with youth, beauty, and the pursuit of aesthetic perfection following Sunday night’s Oscars
Kelly dissected Moore’s ever-evolving appearance, suggesting that the 62-year-old actress was once again falling victim to the pressures of Hollywood’s beauty standards
Moore spoke candidly about her career struggles while accepting her Golden Globe in January including being dismissed as a ‘popcorn actress.’
She said that when she had received the ‘absolutely bonkers’ script for ‘The Substance she was at a low point in her career and believed she was done.
‘One thing that I think this movie is imparting is in those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough, or pretty enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough, or basically just not enough,’ she said in the speech.
‘I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’
While Kelly, 54, expressed sympathy for Moore and the pressures she faces, she remained steadfast in her position on over-the-top cosmetic procedures.
Indeed, Moore looks dramatically different from the look she sported at Paris Fashion Week in 2021.
In The Substance, pictured, the film that eerily mirrors the very predicament Kelly describes: an aging woman in entertainment facing relentless scrutiny about her looks and relevance
Demi Moore (seen left in February 2020), then 58, sparked rumors that she’s had plastic surgery when she showed off a dramatic new look in Paris in 2021
In 2021 social media users expressed their shock over her dramatic new look, with some questioning whether she has had surgery
Way back when: Demi (pictured left in 1993 and right in 1996) has long been known for maintaining incredibly youthful looks, having been in the spotlight since the early 90s
Rumors: The actress was plagued by reports in the early 2000s that she’d had $250,000 worth of plastic surgery ahead of her appearance in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (pictured)
‘I have a message to my fellow women: It is okay to have lines on your face. It’s fine. And honestly, like, I’m big on Botox,’ Kelly said.
‘I told the audience that I am very anti-filler, because all it does is make you look bloated and kind of fat.’
Kelly acknowledged the cruel double bind of the entertainment industry.
‘Being in Hollywood, it’s a lot of pressure. I’m like, torn, because I feel for these women. They can’t have a career past a certain age unless they get all the stuff done, but then you do need the best friend, or like the husband, to be like, “Sweetheart, you’ve gone too far.”‘
Moore has long been known for her age-defying looks, and has often stunned with her ever-youthful appearance and impressively trim and toned physique, which she has maintained for decades.
Demi (pictured in July 2020) denied the surgery reports in a 2007 interview, insisting that she had ‘never’ gone under the knife for a cosmetic procedure
How Demi usually looks: The star was seen promoting her book Inside Out in 2021
It was widely reported almost 20 years ago that Demi had spent nearly $250,000 on plastic surgery to complete transform her face and body ahead of her appearance in the 2003 movie Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, however she shut down the reports as nothing more than speculation, insisting in 2007 that she had ‘never’ had any cosmetic surgery.
‘I don’t like the idea of having an operation to hold up the aging process – it’s a way to combat your neurosis,’ she said at the time. ‘The scalpel won’t make you happy.’
During a 2019 interview with the Daily Mirror, Demi said that she was ’embracing’ the natural aging process, despite admitting that there were times when she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself.
‘Gravity is going in some directions I’m not fond of. I can look in the mirror occasionally and say, “You’re lying, I don’t look like that,”‘ the star explained.
‘But I feel for myself it’s about acceptance… embracing it and no longer looking for what’s wrong – just being accepting of everything.’