20 Stars Who Were Told They Weren't Pretty Enough for Hollywood

when I wrote rainbow I was in a very dark place welcome to Ms Mojo and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 stars who were told they weren't pretty enough for Hollywood at the age of 15 my manager told me to get a nose job for this list we'll be looking at notable celebrities who were given a crude piece of advice at a young age quick disclaimer before we get started there are mentions of potentially triggering topics ahead what do you make of beauty standards in Hollywood let us know in the comments number 20. Kristen Bell this popular actress from Michigan became successful at a relatively young age she broke into the mainstream by playing the titular character on Veronica Mars which debuted in September of 2004. it suddenly feel like I'm in a scene from The Outsiders be cool soda pop Bell had just turned 24 years old it was shortly before this that she continuously received some rather deterring feedback as she explains in a video for Vanity Fair Belle was repeatedly told in auditions that quote she wasn't pretty enough to play the pretty girl and I was like okay so does that just mean like I can't be an actor like what does that mean it's the kind of particularly blunt statement that Hollywood is known for but Belle got the last laugh and she was even included on people's 100 most beautiful list in 2008. number 19 Kesha the music industry is a tough business and its stars are told some terrible things you say I look like cried out of the trash can you say I'm obnoxious nobody was asking Kesha broke onto the scene in 2009 when she was featured on Flo Rida's right round and she later found success with solo efforts like Tick Tock and we are who we are shortly after she topped the charts Kesha was allegedly confronted by her producer Dr Luke who repeatedly criticized her weight gain he allegedly called her fat demanded that her management team intervene and at one point referred to her as a quote refrigerator this caused enormous self-esteem issues in the singer and she attended rehab for eating disorder treatment in 2014. most days I could barely fathom getting out of bed just lying there half awake half alive number 18. Minka Kelly it's weird that a literal model was told she wasn't pretty enough for Hollywood but so is often the case in the industry Minka Kelly was testing for a modeling agency when she attracted the attention of a Playboy Playmate the unnamed Playmate offered to manage the young model provided she got a ton of plastic surgery like liposuction veneers and a breast augmentation I'm on the other side of a lot of really painful and shameful experiences and mindsets that I feel like it's not mine anymore it's it's um my responsibility now to share she even got Kelly into a surgeon's office where she would work as a receptionist in exchange for the surgery Kelly eventually declined the offer and later found success on Friday Night Lights playing Lila Garrity me to help you in and out of that chair well no one's holding a gun to your head Lila I'd do it because I love you stupid but now you're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself she would also be named esquire's sexiest woman alive in 2010. number 17 mini driver an Emmy and oscar-nominated actress mini driver has found success in a number of TV shows and movies she is perhaps best known for playing Skyler in Good Will Hunting for which she received the aforementioned Oscar nomination gotta get up early and waste some more money on my overpriced education but the rule also opened some personal scars driver has revealed that an unknown producer who worked on the movie told her that she wasn't quote hot enough for the role I can't imagine anyone turning down Mini Drivers oh thanks come on but no they did as she told the cut this resurrected old insecurities that she harbored about her physical appearance however both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck fought for driver and she was ultimately cast in the film number 16 Gwyneth Paltrow say what you will about Gwyneth Paltrow as a person but there's no denying that she is beautiful in fact people named her the world's most beautiful woman in 2013. the same year she starred in Iron Man 3. I got you years earlier she tried out for a role in the 1994 drama Golden Gate starring Matt Dillon and Joan Chen however she was allegedly rejected because she was considered quote too plain I feel very lucky that I'm no longer in my 20s and struggling with those very specific set of Life issues but no matter Paltrow would break out just a couple of years later with successful movies like seven and sliding doors becoming one of the most successful actresses in Hollywood number 15. Reese Witherspoon this actress is so beautiful that even science agrees Philadelphia's Temple University School of Medicine conducted a study to determine the most objectively attractive female phase they found that women with heart-shaped faces and cheekbones as wide as their eyebrows could be considered mathematically beautiful and Witherspoon was used as an example in the Press what like it's hard and yet even she was deemed unsuitable for Hollywood Witherspoon revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that she was constantly rejected as a young actress for being quote not tall enough not pretty enough not smart enough however she credits her stubborn personality for getting her through the denigration you know I'm just gonna be stupid and that's cute I just think that's kind of I don't know I just don't think it's a good message for young women number 14. Leah Michelle there's an episode in Glee that sees Leah Michelle's Rachel Berry considering a nose job [Music] my insides are blue every time I think I'm through it's because of you she's told that it's a rite of passage for Jewish girls but she ultimately decides against it while this particular subplot mirrors something that Michelle actually went through as a young teenager during a talk with today's style Michelle revealed that she was pressured by industry Executives to get a nose job when she was just 13 years old I wanted to look in my face and have it be my face according to them it was the only way that she would be able to transition from Broadway to television she refused and poetically enough it's what may have contributed to her being cast as Rachel number 13 Jennifer Lawrence this oscar-winning actress was repeatedly told that she was too large for certain roles she would once again be told this when it came to her being cast as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games Lawrence refused to harm her body for the role seeing that she was also thinking of the damage it might cause in young girls wanting to dress up as Katniss I don't know if I want all of the girls who are going to dress up as Katniss to feel like they can't because they're they're not a certain weight I don't know if that I can't let that seep into my brain either she feared they would believe they'd have to lose weight to look like the character if Lawrence herself looked thinner unfortunately movie reviews of The Hunger Games also targeted the actress's weight with The Hollywood Reporter saying that she had quote lingering baby fat and the New York Times signaling what they called her quote seductive womanly figure that's in the fortune telling of is the audience gonna love this is the audience gonna hate this number 12. Sarah Jessica Parker it says a lot about Hollywood that Publications host unsexiest women lists back in 2007 sex and the cities Sarah Jessica Parker was named Maxim's number one unsexiest woman alive writing that she was the quote least sexy woman in a group of very unsexy women I'm sorry I'm sorry this unfortunate distinction came three years after the show concluded and one year before its big movie continuation which went on to gross over 400 million dollars Parker later told grazia that the classification quote hurts so much and upset her husband Matthew Broderick she concludes with a very mature quote I guess you can't please all people the problem is not your thighs sweetie the problem is your head number 11 Judy Garland this iconic movie star is one of the biggest victims of the merciless Hollywood Machine barely into her teens Judy Garland was horrifically called a quote fat little pig with pigtails and Studios vehemently demanded that she lose weight for the big screen I'm honestly very hungry those will take the edge off she was put on a strict diet consisting of coffee chicken soup and cigarettes to suppress her appetite she was also forced to take pills both to keep her working over long hours and to ensure that she remained thin I can't have a Dorothy who puts on weight halfway through the picture unfortunately this resulted in a debilitating substance use disorder that would haunt Garland for the rest of her life number 10. Kate Winslet while appearing as a speaker at weday UK Winslet told the audience that she was relentlessly bullied as a child and teenager for her weight and big feet and that she was often called blubber by her classmates she was also allegedly told that she wasn't attractive and that she would only make it as an actor as long as she was happy to settle for the fat girl parts despite the roadblocks she appeared in BBC's dark season at age 15. and subsequently won her first bafta at 20 for her performance as Marianne in Sense and Sensibility I haven't said equality yeah tell me what is wrong and where are her bullies now said no number nine pink pink always comes across as an incredibly confident person despite the fact that she's apparently never felt conventionally attractive while talking to Red Book pink said that she was criticized from day one and told that she was never going to make magazine covers because she wasn't pretty enough ever the badass pink took those harsh words and rolled with them she told the magazine the cover of which she adorned that she was perfectly comfortable with not being conventionally beautiful and that she's always put more focus into other aspects of her life such as her happiness family and health number eight Kat Dennings despite having starred in a hit CBS series Kat Dennings apparently does not consider herself a conventional Hollywood star don't get any is according to a New York Times report Dennings calls herself socially weird and hates attending Hollywood parties the co-creator of Two Broke Girls Michael Patrick King also stated that Dennings tended to stay in her apartment on weekends part of this non-hollywood lifestyle is refusing to listen to advice Caroline the problem is that this is not going to compete with perfect little debt okay it's time to go night is over she stated that previous casting agents have told her to fix her teeth dye her hair and lose weight all of which she has refused to do and now she's a millionaire so who's laughing now number 7. nia vardalos nia vardalos takes great pride in her Greek Heritage and leveraged her lineage to create her most prominent role that of tuliporticalis in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and her agent never saw it coming I'm not leaving you don't you want me to do something with my life oh yes get married make babies you look so old when vardalos was first starting out her acting agent quit after telling her that she wasn't pretty enough to be a leading lady and that no one was writing Greek roles because my agent dropped me she told me I wasn't pretty enough to be a leading lady yeah and not fat enough to be a character actress like she didn't say you're not fat like a character she's like you're not fat enough thank you thank you bardalos channeled her frustration and wrote a one-woman play about a Greek Wedding which was fortuitously seen by Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks they then helped produce the movie adaptation through Hank's company playtone and the rest is history guess what I think I'm pretty enough and fat enough to do anything I want number six Mindy Kaling after leaving College Mindy Kaling moved to New York and co-wrote a play about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon called Matt and Ben she then moved to Los Angeles and landed a writing gig on the office where she gradually became one of the show's most prominent supporting characters well I hope you're still committed because I'm pregnant around this time she was offered a sketch show at an unnamed now defunct network but hear this after being personally offered the show she was forced to audition for the role of herself and she didn't get it because she wasn't considered attractive enough for playing herself yeah try to wrap your head around that one God I've learned a lot of life lessons along the way your Department's just you right yes Jim Ben I am not easy to manage great um can we just what was that we just have a lot of serious candidates to get through today so am I not a serious candidate suffice it to say Kaling flourished in spite of the experience it's so weird being my own role model you know I recommend it number five Viola Davis in the 2014 article wrought in rhyme's image by Alessandra Stanley the journalist wrote quote Davis doesn't look at all like the typical star of a network drama don't ask for the truth you pound it out of them Relentless in your pursuit of the answer you want she then went on to call her less classically beautiful than Kerry Washington another Leading Lady of a Shonda Rhimes show Davis responded on The View saying quote being a dark-skinned black woman you hear it from the time you get out of the womb she also stated that classically not beautiful is a euphemism for being ugly and that hearing it used greatly affected her as a child classy and eloquent as always Davis's response was a poignant and empowering one and was on surprisingly praised by many number four Winona Ryder Winona Ryder attributes her success to playing non-conventional characters in an interview with uh interview Ryder says that her first five or six movie roles including that of Rina in Lucas were specifically written as being non-attractive in the scripts want to go thanks I have a date and calling herself unusual looking she took to those roles that eventually granted her access to bigger and better things Ryder also told a story of when she was 15 or 16 and a casting director stopped her mid-sentence to bluntly state that she wasn't pretty enough for Hollywood and that she should go back to school all we want is to be treated like human beings not to be experimented on like guinea pigs or patronized like bunny rabbits I don't patronize bunny rabbits Ryder obviously didn't heed her advice and it led to a decades-long career in Show Business I need you to believe me please number three Lady Gaga Gaga is quite the Glamorous celebrity so it's a little weird to hear that people thought she wasn't pretty enough to make it big and to think this was before she started wearing meat to work an old friend of Gaga's recently told people that Gaga faced an incredible uphill battle while trying to make it in the music Biz Not only was she not being taken seriously but she was also being told without subtlety or attacked that she wasn't pretty enough to be a mainstream pop artist she clearly channeled a lot of that frustration into her role as Ally in A Star is Born a role which has earned her heaps of Praise almost every single person that I've come in contact with in the music industry has told me that my nose is too big and that I won't make it your nose is too big yeah number two Barbra Streisand it's no secret that Barbra Streisand has a prominent nose it's long been one of her defining characteristics and it's been endlessly parodied and referenced in pop culture over the years honey I'm going shopping and I was going to valet park she's attained a level of popularity Worthy of parity speaks volumes when Streisand was first starting out she was often called too Jewish looking and was relentlessly bullied for the size of her nose she was told in no uncertain terms that she would never make it in Showbiz because of it but she refused to get plastic surgery Esther what do you think about the reviews on your new album I haven't read him her Angelic voice and natural ability quickly shut the critics up proving that Talent can take you further than rhinoplasty any day I love to hear an audience applaud but you can't take an audience home with you now I want a personal life to it I'm gonna have it why don't you just wish me luck before we continue be sure to subscribe to our Channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you'll have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications number one Meryl Streep just imagine being the person who once criticized Meryl Streep back in the late 70s strafe was looking to Branch out of theater and into film one of her first auditions was for the 1976 remake of King Kong the one that time has largely forgotten according to Streep the producer turned to his son and asked him why he brought in such an ugly woman Streep in turn scornfully apologized for not being quote as beautiful as she should be so I said to him you know but I understand what you're saying I'm sorry I'm not beautiful enough to be in King Kong clearly Street wasn't pretty enough for a King Kong remake but now she's arguably the most admired actress of all time so really who came out on top here sure that wasn't a question do you agree with our picks check out this other recent clip from Ms Mojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos thank you [Music]

Channel: MsMojo

Views: 124,271

Keywords: barbra streisand, beauty standards, celebrity, human interest, jennifer lawrence, judy garland, kat dennings, kate winslet, lady gaga, list, meryl streep, mindy kaling, mojo, msmojo, nia vardalos, pink, sarah jessica parker, stars told they weren't pretty enough, stars who were rejected, stars who were told they weren't pretty enough for hollywood, top 10, viola davis, watch mojo, watchmojo, winona ryder

Id: IY2qzHHZocU

Length: 18min 32sec (1112 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023