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No, Charlize Theron did not get a facelift—not that she owes you an explanation.
In a new interview with Allure, the 48-year-old actor opened up about aging in the public eye as well as the double standard that labels men like George Clooney a silver fox while women are shamed whether they fully embrace the aging process or fight against it with injections or plastic surgery.
“My face is changing, and I love that my face is changing and aging,” Theron told the magazine while discussing her campaign for Dior’s latest perfume, L’Or de J’Adore. “People think I had a facelift. They’re like, ‘What did she do to her face?’ I’m like, ‘Bitch, I’m just aging! It doesn’t mean I got bad plastic surgery. This is just what happens.’”
She continued, “I’ve always had issues with the fact that men kind of age like fine wines and women like cut flowers. I despise that concept and I want to fight against it, but I also think women want to age in a way that feels right to them. I think we need to be a little bit more empathetic to how we all go through our journey. My journey of having to see my face on a billboard is quite funny now.”
What’s less funny is dealing with these physical changes when you’re a certified action star—I mean, have you seen what Charlize Theron had to pull off in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)? What about Atomic Blonde (2017)? Old Guard (2020)?
“The thing that really bums me out is that I make action movies now and if I hurt myself, I take way longer to heal than I did in my 20s,” Theron said. “More than my face, I wish I had my 25-year-old body that I can just throw against the wall and not even hurt tomorrow. Now if I don’t work out for three days and I go back to the gym, I can’t walk.” With a laugh, she added, “I can’t sit down on the toilet. It’s all those very real moments.”
Despite her sense of humor on the subject, Theron envies her young daughters’ perspectives on beauty, telling Allure they “have no concept of what age is like.” She explained, “They see somebody, they like what they’re wearing, or they think they’re pretty and they don’t really know if she’s in her 20s or she’s in her 60s. It’s so great. I love that. I wish we could just maintain that.” Big same.
