5 Older Celebs That Aren't Playing By Societies' Beauty Rules (& Thank God For That)

We live in a society that's obsessed with youth. Not just being young, but as the years go by, trying to look young by any means possible. While in some cases that works — as with Demi Moore, who looks absolutely stunning at 62 — the quest for eternal youth doesn't always go as planned. Then you find yourself relentlessly ridiculed for wanting to be young-looking by the same people who said you were looking old and should do something about it. It's a struggle that's rarely won.

Although there will always be celebrities who succumb to the beauty standards our culture has prescribed for us, especially as they age, there are a handful who just don't want to play that game. Instead, they've decided against getting plastic surgery, given up on dying their hair, and are sliding into old age like stealth queens, inspiring the rest of us in the process.

While there's not necessarily anything wrong with going under the knife to maintain a more youthful appearance, or to change something about your looks to fit a more conventional narrative of what's beautiful, there's also something extraordinarily powerful in turning your back on societal expectations and demands. If you need older celebrities to show you the beauty that comes with aging, the few that are breaking the rules are loud and proud about it.

For her role in "Everything Everywhere All at Once," Jamie Lee Curtis got to let her real body shine. In the film, she plays a miserable IRS auditor with grey hair and a pudgy belly, the latter of which many thought was a prosthetic. In fact, it was actually Curtis' real stomach — something she loved putting out there for all to see.

"In the world, there is an industry — a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar industry — about hiding things," Curtis told Entertainment Weekly in March 2022. "Concealers. Body-shapers. Fillers ... Everything to conceal the reality of who we are. And my instruction to everybody was: I want there to be no concealing of anything. I've been sucking my stomach in since I was 11 ... I very specifically decided to relinquish and release every muscle I had that I used to clench to hide the reality."

Although Curtis has admitted to having plastic surgery and getting on the Botox bandwagon, she's over it now. Instead, she calls herself pro-aging, and does so with a face that actually moves and is beautifully showcasing her wrinkles, every one of which she has earned.

Salma Hayek has been making our jaws drop since the mid-1990s. Gorgeous, smart, and funny as heck, Hayek is gracefully going into her older years with confidence. Plus, she's one of the women in Hollywood bold enough to still embrace and celebrate her sexuality, no matter the date on her birth certificate.

Hayek has also, unlike many in the industry, rebuffed plastic surgery. "I don't believe in Botox because your face doesn't move, and it's something you have to do for the rest of your life, more and more every time," Hayek told DuJour in 2016. "I don't look at things short term; I think of longevity." More recently, Hayek very proudly showcased her gray hair — gasp! — in public. 

At the 2025 Golden Globes, Hayek walked the carpet in a stunning burgundy Gucci dress, with equally exquisite gray hairs around her temples and strewn throughout her dark cascading locks. But this wasn't the first time Hayek dared to defy society's beauty rules. On Instagram, she's been posting photos of gray and sometimes white hair for years. In February 2019, Hayek posted a selfie captioned, "Proud of my white hair."

Not only has Pamela Anderson ditched society's unrealistic expectations for women by joining the club of celebrities who are vocal about avoiding plastic surgery, but she's also done with wearing makeup. For decades, Anderson rocked a full face of makeup that often included over-lined lips and heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow. But now that she's in her late 50s, a time when some women might try to conceal their wrinkles and fine lines under loads of makeup, Anderson has gone completely in the other direction.

The world first saw a makeup-free Anderson in public in 2023. "I didn't come to Paris Fashion Week and think, 'I'm not gonna wear makeup,'" Anderson told Allure in October 2023. "Something kind of came over me and I was dressing in these beautiful clothes and I thought, 'I don't want to compete with the clothes.' I'm not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. I'm not into the makeup look right now." Anderson went on to explain to the magazine that there's a freedom in not being tethered to make-up, calling it a "relief."

Since reaching her mid-50s, Halle Berry has made it her mission to empower women, especially as they get older. "As I've aged, I've been determined to age gracefully and naturally," Berry said in a 2024 interview with Fortune Magazine. "It's a shame that as women, we're being told that we have to find a way to stay eternally young, forever 30, as though we're not allowed to be human and do what we're naturally born to do. We're born to age and die."

Not only has Berry been vocal about the beauty of getting older and how it contributes to her avoidance of plastic surgery, but she's also fought back against menopause misconceptions. While the topic of menopause isn't directly linked to society's beauty rules, addressing it is a huge deal considering our culture doesn't want women to age, as it's often assumed that in doing so they lose their looks. Berry's candidness about menopause and the not-so-pleasant things that come with it should absolutely be applauded. It wasn't that long ago that menopause was a dirty word — and still is for some. 

If ever there was an older celebrity who refused to play by society's beauty rules, it's Dame Helen Mirren. From rocking bikinis well into her 60s — an age society has decided is too old for bikinis — to shunning plastic surgery and not dying her naturally gray hair, Mirren isn't just a master at staying chic in your 60s and beyond, but she bucks the system so hard with fearless defiance of beauty rules that it's amazing it hasn't completely toppled over yet.

"I'm not growing old, I'm growing up," Mirren told Express UK in January 2024. "I'm learning more about life and how to live it. I feel the age that I am. With all the curiosity, knowledge and fear I have about life." Mirren also told the magazine that she can't stand the term "anti-aging," because aging is simply part of the process of being alive. It's something worth celebrating, rather than trying to run and hide from it.