Kate Beckinsale, 50, Responds to 'Insidious Bullying' Plastic Surgery ...

• Kate Beckinsale shared a lengthy post defending herself against plastic surgery accusations.
• Followers often say she is chasing youth and uses Botox and filler, both of which she has denied.
• “It’s really such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person. I don’t actually do any of those things,” she wrote.

Kate Beckinsale has been in the public eye for a long time, and because of that, fans feel entitled to critique her changing appearance. Many insist that she’s had every cosmetic procedure you can think of to look younger. And in a new post, the 50-year-old, once again, responded to plastic surgery accusations (and “insidious bullying”) and set the record straight.

The post featured two videos of Beckinsale taken 20 years apart. In both, she is glamorously done-up and makes eyes at the camera. A lengthy caption began her defense. “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,” she wrote. She continued, explaining that she has fielded accusations about chasing youth since she turned 30. Followers tell her she looks unrecognizable, and that she’s using Botox and fillers. “It’s really such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person. I don’t actually do any of those things,” she wrote.

Beckinsale said that the pestering “happens constantly” and mostly comes from women. “Obviously I have aged, everybody ages,” she wrote. What bothers her most is that those who are convinced she wants to anti-age have no idea how grateful she is to have lived beyond 20. “I’m not too concerned about aging,” she explained. That’s because, after finding her father dead of a heart attack at age 5, she spent her teenage years and much of her 20s “absolutely crippled with severe anxiety and panic attacks,” fearful that the same untimely exit would strike her. “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 wrote.

Beckinsale went on to dissect the differences between the two clips she shared. “What is different is that I lived in the UK, and was paler, I used to pluck the shit 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,” she explained.

It’s not lost on her that many will continue to barrage her posts with hateful comments. “But I’m also posting [this] 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,” she concluded. “Please stop now.”

This diatribe comes after Beckinsale defended herself directly to a few commenters under a June 2023 post about her Cannes Film Festival look. “I don’t [have Botox or fillers],” she replied to one person who asked if she dabbled in injectables. “I actually can’t, I have a condition called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome which is actually a massive daily struggle and means I react to hundreds of things badly. Can’t take the risk.”

Friendly reminder that it’s never a great idea to share unsolicited comments on a person’s appearance—even if you think you’re complimenting them.

Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer-editor who covers health, nutrition, and lifestyle topics for various publications including Prevention, Everyday Health, SELF, People, and more. She’s always open to conversations about fueling up with flavorful dishes, busting beauty standards, and finding new, gentle ways to care for our bodies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University with specializations in women, gender, and sexuality studies and public health, and is a born-and-raised midwesterner living in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and two spoiled kitties.