Kate Beckinsale says she has had enough of being "accused of having had unrecognizable surgery" and continuous claims that she's "obsessed with youth."
On Sunday, May 5, the Underworld actress shared two videos of herself she said were easily "20 years apart" on Instagram, along with a lengthy caption hitting back at people who continue to claim she's had plastic surgery and/or other cosmetic procedures.
"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. "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."
Beckinsale wrote that despite her efforts to squash the rumors, people continue to accuse her of looking "plastic" and "unrecognizable."
"It happens constantly and it's usually women that are doing it," she added. "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. 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.
Later, while attending the King's Trust 2024 Global Gala in New York City on Thursday, May 2, Beckinsale clarified that her stepdad died as a result of cancer.
"My mum's got cancer and my stepdad just died of cancer," she said at the time.
In her Instagram post, Beckinsale explained that as a result of losing her father at such a young age, she "went to emergency room often, and was almost, at that time of my life, completely immobilized by that anxiety."
"The fact that one of the major things I am bullied about is an assumption that I can’t handle the idea of getting older is so deeply ironic when my all consuming terror was that I never thought I’d even see the end of my 20s," she continued. "As you can see from these two videos, what is different is that I lived in the UK, and was paler, I used to pluck the s*** out of my eyebrows, I loved that brown lipstick that everybody wore. I had a fuller face, as most of us do in our late teens and 20s."
Despite the lengthy Instagram caption and undeniable vulnerability, Beckinsale wrote that she made the post "knowing full well that it will have absolutely no effect."
"It isn't going to stop," she added.
Still, she said she decided to share the post regardless "because whatever someone looks like, accusing them constantly of things they haven't done or being obsessed with youth when actually, currently I'm obsessed with surviving loss is bullying."
Beckinsale ended the post with a simple request: "Please stop now."
