15 Times Famous People Had To Have Uncomfortable Conversations About Their Appearance

If there’s one country music star who can be said to be a national treasure, it would be Dolly Parton. With her big blonde hair, dazzling smile, and numerous other physical and charismatic assets, she has always been a larger-than-life personality, and she has also shown herself to be remarkably down-to-earth. Given the outlandishness of her appearance, she has come in for some harsh commentary and questioning, particularly in a now-notorious interview with Barbara Walters, who even went so far as to ask Parton if she thought of herself as a joke. 

Parton, in the disarming style that would become her trademark, responded: “Oh, I know they make fun of me, but all these years the people have thought the joke was on me, but it’s actually on them [...] I am sure of myself as a person. I am sure of my talent. I’m sure of my love for life and that sort of thing. I am very content. I like the kind of person that I am. So, I can afford to piddle around and do-diddle around with makeup and clothes and stuff because I am secure with myself.”

Few musicians working today have had a career quite as spectacularly successful as Lady Gaga. Since the release of her first album The Fame in 2008, she has gone from success to success, accruing both professional accolades and enormous success. She has even forayed into movies, earning praise for her performance in A Star is Born. Given the theatricality of her persona, however, she has faced her fair share of media scrutiny and rumors, particularly surrounding the possibility she might have male anatomy.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper, she had no patience for these rumors and innuendo. As she bluntly put it: “Would it be so terrible? Why the hell am I gonna waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care, and neither do I.”

For much of the 1990s, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were fodder for various tabloid rumors. After rising to international prominence thanks to their shared role as Michelle Tanner on the hit sitcom Full House, they went on to become fashion designers and appeared in a number of films of their own. Given the weight-consciousness of the 1990s and early 2000s, it was probably inevitable they would face scrutiny over their appearances, and they endured a number of uncomfortable questions, including at the hands of none other than Oprah Winfrey.

Ashley had this to say during the interview:  “Yeah, you know people are gonna write what they’re gonna write. We try not to read the good or the bad because it just comes with the territory. Either you’re too fat, too skinny and people are just gonna write what they–” Unfortunately, she was interrupted by Winfrey, who wanted to press them on what size they wore, which is seemingly not very appropriate to ask a teenager at all.

The late Anna Nicole Smith was one of those people who ultimately became famous for being famous. She began her career at Playboy and became a model for several companies before becoming embroiled in a famous legal case regarding her late husband’s estate and whether she had married him for his money.

As with so many women of the 1990s, her weight was a source of media speculation and mockery, and in one notorious instance, Howard Stern tried to pressure her into weighing herself on his show so he and the other members of the cast could take bets on it. Smith made clear at the time how uncomfortable it made her, and several years later, she elaborated on the incident with Sharon Osborne: “It's not right for him to say that to other women," she remarked. "I wanted an apology." 

Anne Hathaway has appeared in numerous high-profile roles, ranging from The Devil Wears Prada to Brokeback Mountain. She has particularly excelled at playing ingenue-type characters, but as she has grown more confident in her abilities, she has branched out, and in 2012, she appeared in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises as Catwoman. 

Like far too many young women, though, she has had to put up with quite a lot of scrutiny of her physical appearance, particularly surrounding her appearance as Catwoman. In one particularly excruciating interview, she was asked multiple times about the rigors of getting in shape for the role and whether the suit was comfortable. To her credit, Hathaway had finally had enough and quipped, “Are you trying to lose weight? What’s the deal, man? You look great. Seriously, we have to talk about this. What do you want? Are you trying to fit into a catsuit?”

Taylor Lautner rose to international prominence thanks to his appearance in the Twilight films. He portrayed Jacob, the werewolf who is one of main character Bella’s love interests. In addition to bringing a brooding intensity to the character, his body was also the source of significant attention since the films highlighted his sculpted physique. 

Unfortunately, this has been a double-edged sword, and as the actor has grown older, he has had to endure snarky comments from those who rudely stated he hadn’t aged well. Rather than letting the comments damage his sense of self-worth (an understandable response), Lautner instead had this to say: “You find value where you put it, and if you put your value in what other people think of you, that’s how you’re going to feel. But if you put your value in knowing who you are, what’s important to you, what you love ― that kind of stuff won’t get to you.”