Jamie Lee Curtis has thoughts about the harm done to ‘a generation of women by the cosmeceutical industrial complex’

Jamie Lee Curtis speaks onstage during the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Awards at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 3 in Palm Springs, California. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

Jamie Lee Curtis understands that using the word “genocide” to describe plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures might not go over well for some, but she’s not backing down.

“I’ve been very vocal about the genocide of a generation of women by the cosmeceutical industrial complex,” the actress told The Guardian in a recently published interview. “I’ve used that word for a long time and I use it specifically because it’s a strong word. I believe that we have wiped out a generation or two of natural human (appearance).”

The “Freakier Friday” star caused a stir years ago when she posed for a magazine cover in her underwear and no makeup to show the reality of what she looked like at the time.

Now 66, Curtis told The Guardian that “the concept that you can alter the way you look through chemicals, surgical procedures, fillers – there’s a disfigurement of generations of predominantly women who are altering their appearances.”

She added that the trend “is aided and abetted by AI, because now the filter face is what people want.”

“I’m not filtered right now. The minute I lay a filter on and you see the before and after, it’s hard not to go: ‘Oh, well that looks better.’ But what’s better?,” the Oscar-winner continued. “Better is fake. And there are too many examples – I will not name them – but very recently we have had a big onslaught through media, many of those people.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Curtis described how she would respond to other public-facing personalities in her business that may have indeed had plastic surgery, saying, “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not proselytising to them. I would never say a word,” she said. “I would never say to someone: what have you done? All I know is that it is a never-ending cycle. That, I know. Once you start, you can’t stop. But it’s not my job to give my opinion; it’s none of my business.”

This is far from the first time Curtis has commented on what it means to age in Hollywood.

During a 2024 appearance on “Today,” the star said she was “very much in acceptance of what I look like and I own what I think and feel. And that, to me, is what maturity is.”

“You own what you think and feel. I say what I mean. I mean what I say. I try not to say it mean. And that’s a way then to grow into my old age.”

By Lisa Respers France, CNN