With Oscar season just in our rear-view mirrors, it’s a little tough to relate to the world’s most beautiful women who are murdering the red carpet draped in Valentino and Dior and flying off to their $5 mil mansions in Malibu. Meanwhile we’re pretty sure we got bird crap on our UGGs again.
Yet the women who push past these truthfully unattainable standards and remind us that they also laugh, cry, fall, get tongue-tied and binge-watch Netflix from time to time earn a place in our hearts, and now a spot on our Most Down to Earth Women of Hollywood list:
1. Kate Hudson
Kate Hudson is gorgeous and fearless, and apparently, not afraid to get down and dirty watching a great football game in the stands with a couple of beers and some snacks rather than up in a heated box with… caviar? Gold-plated seats? Who knows what goes on up there?
Always one for a laugh and never failing to prioritize her big, tight-knit family, we can’t help but love us some Kate.
2. Ellen DeGeneres
I mean… Ellen. Serving as a spokeswoman for a variety of philanthropic causes and social movements, Ellen DeGeneres has remained a model of kindness and generosity since her career first took off in the mid-1980s.
Her many accomplishments in the television industry range from multiple Emmy wins for her self-titled talk show to her nine People’s Choice Awards, yet arguably her greatest personal and professional achievement has been her brave and powerful public coming out announcement in 1997, which made her “the first leading character on a television series to be openly gay.”
3, 4 and 5. The Jennifers (Aniston, Lopez, and Lawrence)
All three of these strong and beautiful women have dealt with their share of hardship and gossip: Aniston through her very public divorce with Brad Pitt and his alleged affair with Angelina Jolie, Lopez with her three failed marriages and several other relationship scandals, and Lawrence with the leaking of her nude photographs in 2014. Yet all three women have always been able to hold their heads high and laugh at themselves, and thus inspire us to do the same. Whether tripping over a dress, forgetting everything at the worst possible time, or reminiscing about where they came from, the Jennifers live out all of our most embarrassing and intimate moments for all the world to see.
(Sorry JGarner, love you still.)
6. Queen Latifah
A pioneer in the women’s rap movement, and now a highly-successful actress, singer and talk show host, Dana Elaine Owens, known to fans as Queen Latifah, has never lost her sense of warmth or her passion for giving back to communities in dire need of economic and emotional support, and even more, of someone to help lend a voice to their often marginalized issues and concerns.
Queen has battled through opposition in many forms, particularly on the basis of her gender identity (as a woman trying to break into a highly male-dominated industry), her racial identity as a Black woman, and her sexual identity (a subject she has never publically discussed, yet her silence has prompted significant scrutiny in recent years). Destroying gender and racial stereotypes like it’s her job, Queen has forever solidified herself as both a powerful and relatable force in the entertainment industry.
7. Sandra Bullock
We’ve loved our girl Sandra since we first heard her epic snort and saw her Cinderella transformation in Miss Congeniality, and have continued loving her ever since, through her well-deserved Oscar win to her very public split from undeserving ex Jesse James. Gifted and brilliant, yet never taking herself too seriously, we honestly spend half of our time wishing Sandy was our new best friend. Plus, her relationship with her son, Louis, is a beautiful testament to the often unrecognized plight of strong and capable single moms everywhere.
8. Tyra Banks
The most lovable and insane of them all. Collegiettes, we humbly you offer you: Miss Tyra Banks.
Tyra’s had her share of falls, laughing fits and overreactions, as have the rest of us (frighteningly similar to us during our Wednesday 8 AMs, eh, Collegiettes?). Yet not a year at the Emmy’s goes by that we don’t miss the annual nods to her daytime talk show “The Tyra Banks Show”, and we love that she reps her mom as her number one supporter. Perhaps most significantly, we’re huge fans of how adamantly Tyra has always fought against acts of body-shaming, both within and outside of the fashion industry (long live the epic speech that was #kissmyfatass).
Let’s continue to be inspired by these independent and courageous women, Collegiettes! HCXO!
Photo Sources: Cover Photo, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
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