Beau Grealy
Lili Reinhart sees the beauty in the natural body.
In an impassioned interview with Glamour UK, the Hustlers star called out the problems she has with society’s standards on the female form.
“Even today, I see myself in the mirror and think, this doesn’t look the way the world tells me it should. I don’t have a cinched, minuscule waist. I do have curves, I have cellulite, my arms aren’t stick thin,” she shared with the magazine. “This is my body and we’re told that it should fit certain proportions. There’s such a disgusting problem right now with people photoshopping their bodies. Obviously, there’s a reason why people do it, they’re insecure, they feel like they’re not good enough, and that’s incredibly sad.”
Fortunately, Reinhart finds uplifting inspiration in certain public figures. “When I see someone who’s authentically themselves, like models Charli Howard or Ashley Graham, who promote healthy, real body images, I think that is so refreshing and important. Our community values need to reflect that.” The two models are known to use their social media platforms to embrace, highlight and celebrate society’s less-loved parts of the body: stretch marks, cellulite, bellies, thighs.
“Charli’s messaging talks to me on social media. She makes me feel like my body doesn’t need to fit these impossible standards, and she’s a model, my body will never look like that. It just won’t, and 90% of women’s bodies will never look like that, but we are still only used to seeing one body on the runway and in magazines,” Reinhart explained. “It’s an incredibly stupid and confusing thing for that to be shoved down young men and women’s throats. Being told: ‘This is what beautiful is.’ And it’s often unachievable to regular people.”
Meanwhile, Reinhart also has a bone to pick with how certain physical elements have been framed as flaws.
“This idea of cellulite…It really pisses me off. It’s this weird thing where people think that it’s unnatural or a symbol of being fat. It’s so f&%ked up because cellulite is just a part of the human body,” she told the magazine. “It’s just genetic, it’s like having freckles on your face. It’s something that is there, you’re born with it, and it’s become this disgusting thing. We’re told: ‘We need to laser this away, no one wants to see that.’ There’s nothing more beautiful than when I see stretch marks, or cellulite, and people’s real skin.”
Beau Grealy
As more public figures like Reinhart take a stand against the old body image mindset, the star will start to see the world she wants for future young girls like she was.
“I would love to see a world where people who are already thin don’t need to photoshop their waist even more, to make young girls, like me, when I was 14 or 16 years old go, ‘I thought I was skinny, but maybe I’m not. Maybe I need to have an eating disorder to make my body look like that,'” Reinhart said. “Life is not a FaceTune app.”
See the full feature in the November digital issue of GLAMOUR UK, available online now.