You can't have failed to notice the furore about Renée Zellweger's face yesterday.
You cannot have failed to notice the furore surrounding Renée Zellweger's face.
Yesterday, it seemed that every media outlet and blogger out there had taken it upon themselves to wade in on her appearance at a Hollywood award bash, scrutinising her looks to an uncomfortable extent - at one point the hashtag #ReneeZellwegerFace was even trending on Twitter.
Not that it's anyone's business how someone looks or how they choose to approach the inevitable ageing process, in a society that demands perfection from women at all times, the actress has decided to release a statement about the internet gossip.
Addressing the 'silly' speculation, she explained she was choosing to make a comment because 'it seems the folks who come digging around for some nefarious truth which doesn't exist won't get off my porch until I answer the door.'
She continued: 'I'm glad folks think I look different! I'm living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I'm thrilled that perhaps it shows.'
'My friends say that I look peaceful. I am healthy,' Zellweger went on. 'For a long time I wasn't doing such a good job with that. I took on a schedule that is not realistically sustainable and didn't allow for taking care of myself. Rather than stopping to recalibrate, I kept running until I was depleted and made bad choices about how to conceal the exhaustion. I was aware of the chaos and finally chose different things.'
'I did work that allows for being still, making a home, loving someone, learning new things, growing as a creative person and finally growing into myself,' she said.
'People don't know me in my 40s. People don't know me [as] healthy for a while,' Zellweger finished. 'Perhaps I look different. Who doesn't as they get older?! Ha. But I am different. I'm happy.'
Let that be the end of it. Please.