Kate Beckinsale Reacts to ‘Insidious Bullying’ of Her Appearance

Kate Beckinsale is slamming haters who have flooded her social media pages with accusations of plastic surgery.

Over the weekend, the Underworld actress, 50, took to her Instagram page to respond to the onslaught of “insidious bullying” of her appearance in recent years, specifically her face. Sharing a video of herself from early on in her career, the British-born starlet highlighted how fans and followers have used photos and clips of her from decades ago to create negativity and accuse her of using Botox and fillers, which she says she doesn’t “actually do.”

“I hate talking about this because I hate adding to this conversation but I’m doing it because insidious bullying of any kind over time takes a toll,” Beckinsale — who recently made her first red carpet appearance after a scary hospital stint — began her lengthy address. 

She added, “These videos might be 20 years apart -maybe more. Every time I post anything – and by the way, this has been the case since I was about 30 -I am accused of having had unrecognisable surgery /using Botox using fillers /being obsessed with looking younger, and it’s really such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person.”

Despite the accusations and widespread assumptions that she has had work done on her face, Beckinsale remains adamant that is not the case. Furthermore, she says that even though she has had a doctor verify her claims, the comment section on all of her Instagram photos are still flooded with horrific comments about her looks.

“I don’t actually do any of those things -I’ve even gone to the trouble of having a plastic surgeon categorically state that I don’t and haven’t,” Beckinsale wrote in the caption of the post, adding, “and still ,every time there’s a chorus of my God, you’re unrecognisable… it happens constantly and it’s usually women that are doing it.”

The video posted by Beckinsale shows her full-faced with thin eyebrows in her youth — which she addresses by detailing the differences between her life then and now — and explaining that while some have lobbed criticisms over her look, she is grateful for the opportunity to get older after growing up with a crippling fear of death. 

“What is different is that I lived in the UK, and was paler, I used to pluck the s**t out of my eyebrows, I loved that brown lipstick that everybody wore. I had a fuller face , as most of us do in our late teens and 20s,” she wrote. “Life happens -obviously I have aged, everybody ages; I’m not too concerned about aging-because I found my father dead at the age of 5 ,I spent most of my teenage years and a good deal of my 20s absolutely crippled with severe anxiety and panic attacks that I was going to die of a heart attack too,and went to emergency rooms often,and was almost, at that time of my life, completely immobilised by that anxiety.” 

Beckinsale continued, “The fact that one of the major things I am bullied about is an assumption that I can’t handle the idea of getting older is so deeply ironic when my all consuming terror was that I never thought I’d even see the end of my 20s.”

In closing, the actress wrote that she believes the hate will not end with her post but that she hopes that her words will inspire people to think twice before commenting on another person’s appearance, especially when that person could be going through something of their own. 

“I’m posting this knowing full well that it will have absolutely no effect. It isn’t going to stop. But I’m also posting it because whatever someone looks like, accusing them constantly of things they haven’t done, or being obsessed with youth when actually, currently I’m obsessed with surviving loss, is bullying. Please stop now,” she wrote. 

For Beckinsale, it has been a rough couple of months since a hospitalization for unspecified issues earlier this year. She just recently reemerged at the King’s Trust Gala in New York City, where a source told ET she appeared to be “in great spirits!” despite talking openly about her “tough year.”

The appearance comes more than a month after she skipped out on the Vanity Fair Oscars party in March due to her health struggles. 

“Kate Beckinsale hasn’t been doing or feeling well. She was supposed to go to the Vanity Fair Oscars party and had to cancel,” a source told ET at the time of the March 10 event. “She is doing her best to take care of herself, but it’s not a great situation.”

She later posted and deleted a photo in April, which showed her wearing a shirt that red “Tummy Troubles Survivor.”

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