Icon and model Pamela Anderson, 57, chose to go makeup-free during her appearance at Paris Fashion Week in September 2023 — and she hasn’t gone back. Since then, other celebrities have followed suit. When Anderson appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show, host Drew Barrymore, 49, and guest Valerie Bertinelli, 64 decided to wear bare faces, too.
The three women discussed the actress’ new no-makeup movement.
“I really think you own this space,” Barrymore tells Anderson in the beginning of the clip. “I think you’re the pioneer of what we’re certainly doing here today.”
Anderson responded, “Isn’t it freeing? Doesn’t it feel free? I feel free. I mean, it’s taken a while, too; I’ve had my little, you know, journey with it, but we all are our own worst critics.”
Bertinelli chimes in, asking when Anderson started embracing and feeling comfortable without any beauty products.
“I was at Paris Fashion Week and decided I was just going to a fashion show. I didn’t need to compete with anybody. Like, why am I wasting three hours in a makeup chair when I have these beautiful Vivenne Westwood clothes on? And I didn’t realize anyone would even notice,” Anderson said.
She added, “So then, when people started coming up to me and talking about it, I thought, ‘Well, this is a great message.’ You know, to really peel it back and find out who I was again. I wanted to remember who I was.”
The actor continued, saying how she’s felt like she’s played characters throughout her life and was shy as a kid. “Even doing Playboy was a huge leap of faith for me,” she added.
“It just hit me a couple of years ago, and I was like, you know, just shaking my head, going, ‘Who am I?’ You know, and that’s when I went home into my garden and started planting things and getting into nature and going back to the trees that knew me since birth,” Anderson explains.
“I bought my grandmother’s property and renovated it, and I just started taking it all back. And then started peeking out without makeup. And then I started realizing, ‘Oh, I feel great as me,” she concluded.
After the clip gained traction on TikTok, several users applauded Anderson on her makeup-free look.
One user wrote, “I’m in tears. Women deserve to be able to live authentically. We are beautiful in all forms.”
“People are so desensitized to how natural women look. No make up, or filters or fillers. Nothing is wrong with aging gracefully and being natural. Bring that back 👏 well done ladies,” another wrote.
One user echoed, “The younger generation doesn’t understand how huge this is. When she said, she only played characters and she wanted to find out who she was, hit hard. Let’s all find ourselves more. Love this!”
