Kate Beckinsale has gone to unconventional lengths to fight back against her online trolls.
In a series of Instagram posts featuring a variety of photos and videos, the Underworld actress appeared as an elderly man in a wheelchair, complete with full-makeup, an all-white suite and matching sky-high platform heeled boots.
In one photo, Beckinsale poses with an all-white cat. In another photo, she poses alongside someone appearing as a bride. In a video, the apparent bride pushes Beckinsale in the wheelchair before she falls to the ground.
"New deal. This is all you’re getting," the actress captioned the first photo she posted of herself as an elderly man. "Hope it is less triggering and more what you consider age appropriate. Sayonara b******."
Beckinsale has also apparently turned off the ability for friends, family and fans to comment on her Instagram posts.
The photos and videos follow a now-delete Instagram post featuring two videos of Beckinsale 20 years or more apart, along with a lengthy message to people the actress says have constantly accused her of "having had unrecognizable surgery" because she's "obsessed with youth."
"I hate talking about this because I hate adding to this conversation, but I'm doing it because insidious bullying of any kind over time takes a toll," Beckinsale wrote at the time. "These videos might be 20 years apart—maybe more. Every time I post anything—and by the way, this has been the case since I was about 30—I am accused of having unrecognizable surgery/using Botox, using fillers/being obsessed with looking younger, and it's really such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person."
Beckinsale went on to clarify that she doesn't "actually do any of those things" and has even "gone to the trouble of having a plastic surgeon categorically state that I don't and haven't."
In the same deleted post, Beckinsale said that the hate "happens constantly and it's usually women that are doing it."
"Life happens—obviously I have aged, everybody ages. I'm not too concerned about aging because I found my father dead at the age of 5," she continued. "I spent most of my teenage years and a good deal of my 20s absolutely crippled with severe anxiety and panic attacks that I was going to die of a heart attack, too."
Beckinsale's father, Richard Beckinsale, died in 1979 of a heart attack. Her mother, Judy Loe, eventually remarried and the actress grew extremely close to her stepdad, Roy Battersby. In January, Beckinsale announced her stepdad had also died after “a brief period of illness" via Instagram.
"My mum's got cancer and my stepdad just died of cancer," Beckinsale said recently while attending the King's Trust 2024 Global Gala in New York City on Thursday, May 2.
At the same event, she revealed that her mother was "at the same cancer hospital" as King Charles, who is undergoing treatment for an unspecified type of cancer.
