Julia Roberts attended the Notting Hill premiere in 1999, waving heartily at admirers while displaying two little crops of armpit hair in a short-sleeved, sequined, red shift dress. It sent shockwaves through the industry at the time, and many consider it to be a pivotal—if not pioneering—moment in the history of renowned women defying shaving custom and going au naturel. Roberts, who was 31 at the time, had no plans to do so.
During an interview on Busy Tonight to promote her new 10-part Amazon mystery series Homecoming, Roberts, 51, clarified that it wasn’t meant to send a message about feminism or beauty standards.
Julia said: “The picture is vivid in my mind actually from that moment. I think I just hadn’t really calculated my sleeve length and the waving, and how those two things would go together and reveal personal things about me. So it wasn’t so much a statement as it’s just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet, for myself.”
That’s not to say Roberts hasn’t made some powerful feminist statements: she’s a badass in her own right.
Roberts also discussed her ubiquitous Instagram “faux boom” moments.
“I’m a little late to all the parties,” she admitted to Philipps. “I said to the kids, ‘Oh! Let’s, let’s send them one back.’ And they said ‘Oh do you have the app for it?,’ and I said, ‘No.’ And so my kids were like ‘Don’t worry we’ve got this, just film us.’ And so I did and they Boomeranged themselves. So there was the ‘Faux Boom’ born in my kitchen around 6:15 in the morning last summer. I’ve just cherry picked their moves, as any good mother does.’”
According to Stylist, the actress was the first woman to earn a $20 million salary (£15.3 million) for her performance in Erin Brockovich, and she then earned $25 million (£19.2 million) for her role in Mona Lisa Smile, making her the most paid actress of all time at the time.
She recently expressed her deep feelings about the gender wage gap, saying that although the issue still remains, it is improving “every day”.
She said, “It’s an ongoing thing that we wish was more in the rearview. But every day … today I know the World Surfing League announced that they will have equal pay for their female surfers and male surfers.”
“And Manchester United has a female team that started this year. I think there are places where people are really making those efforts in the right direction. So if it’s a little bit of time, then we have to take it and be happy for it.”
