Why celebrities owe us honesty about their beauty procedures

To be a woman is to straddle a set of contradictions: look put together, but don't try so hard. Be thin, but don't deprive yourself. Be beautiful, but naturally so. We are surrounded by projections of feminine beauty—poreless faces and carved bodies—and it is time to speak up.

- By Divya Venkataraman

In 2024, we are operating in a world with a general—if still hazy—awareness that famous (and non-famous women) are often dramatically filtered, photoshopped, and physically modified. But there's one strange fallacy at the heart of it all: Celebrities, those at the highest echelons of what society considers beautiful, won't often admit to having had cosmetic enhancements. Many even go so far as to blatantly deny it.

Let's be clear: There should never be an actual—legal, regulatory, financial—obligation on anyone to admit that they have modified themselves, surgically or otherwise. Even celebrities should be granted privacy about the choices they make about their own bodies. But there is some kind of moral obligation. The position of power they occupy—they wield the power to reinforce beauty standards, the power to make a young woman question her own self-worth—comes with a sort of moral impetus, and puts them in a different category from a person without that kind of influence deciding whether or not to be transparent about them.