The rise of the makeunder: From Alicia Keys’ ‘rebellious’ choice to ditch make-up to Drew Barrymore embracing her pure self at 50 – celebs who’re going again to au pure as Pamela Anderson shares her new look

She is best known for her striking Baywatch days and over-the-top glamour.

However, in recent years Pamela Anderson has embraced the bare-faced look, admitting she finds it ‘freeing’ to go makeup-free to events.

She went viral after she showed up make-up free at Paris Fashion Week in 2023, and on Tuesday the star, 58, revamped her look once again, this time debuting a curly red-hued bob.

Pamela proudly declared that ‘beauty is subjective’ as she shared that she’s ‘not opposed to makeup’ but admitted that she ‘used it for protection in the past’.

Embracing her natural beauty she told People magazine she has found ‘another form of freedom’, yet she isn’t the only celebrity to embrace the makeunder look. 

After years of women being subjected to the flawless beauty standards of society, several are making the move to break away and embrace their natural good looks. 

From Alicia Keys’ ‘crusade’ bare-faced magazine cover back in 2016, to Drew Barrymore embracing her natural looks at 50, it is a refreshing move in comparison to the need to chase a smooth forehead and full cheeks. 

Meanwhile, reality stars who we know well for their fake lips and surgically enhanced assets are making a move to reverse their surgeries and not bow to the cruel remarks of online trolls.  

Alicia Keys 

Alicia Keys famously quit wearing makeup in 2016 and has described the decision as her ‘rebellious moment’. 

The Empire State Of Mind hitmaker took her first stance when she shot the cover of her album Here without clothes or cosmetics and even took a stance on the VMAs red carpet by ditching her beauty kit back in 2016. 

In an essay for Lenny’s Letters, she wrote: ‘I hope to God it’s a revolution. ‘Cause I don’t want to cover up anymore. Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.’

At the time the singer, who is now 44, said going make up free made her feel ‘the strongest, most empowered and most beautiful that [she’s] ever felt.’

Feeling as though she was freed from the societal pressures of looking a certain way she in her makeup free cover for ELLE UK Magazine at the time she said: ‘Yes, I am a feminist.

‘And whoever isn’t is crazy… It’s about owning your power, embracing your womanhood.’

Laughing off the idea that her make-up free demonstration is something of a ‘crusade,’ she said: ‘It took me forever to get this skin.

‘I mean, I know how it feels to have a face full of bumps and pimples. I lived through that in the public eye.

‘Some have called this a crusade,’ she continued. ‘Well, I died laughing at that. I used to feel the pressure to appear as the music industry expected, but I don’t now.’

Now Alicia will sometimes wear makeup when she feels like it.  

She told InStyle back in 2023: ‘When I had my rebellious moment, which obviously the world witnessed with me, I was just getting to know myself.’

The music artist also dished: ‘I went through my own experience of really feeling rebellious about what people were telling me, what the world, society was telling me, what I was supposed to look like because I fell into that, I subscribed to it.’

The songstress explained how building her relationship with her inner self influenced her decision to reincorporate cosmetics into her beauty. 

‘As I started to get more into that personal relationship with myself, that’s when I started realizing, “Okay, it’s not about anything specific.” 

‘It’s not about makeup or no makeup. It’s not about mascara or no mascara. It’s not about lipstick or no lipstick. That’s not what it’s about,’ the New York City native expressed.

‘What it’s about is, how do you want to express yourself, and what space do you want to claim for yourself? And what boundaries do you want for yourself?’ she noted.

Drew Barrymore

Since turning 50 in February, Drew Barrymore has also been making a more conscious effort to embrace her natural look 

Taking to Instagram with a candid selfie back in July, the star beamed as she appeared makeup free and allowed her grey hairs to show through. 

She captioned it: ’50 = The B-Side of life — where the real magic starts to spin!’ 

Reflecting on her age back in January, Drew told AARP: ‘You just realize you’re going to live X amount of years, if you’re lucky, and I would like to live the second half of my life, like, the B-side of a record, not the same way as the A-side.’

Drew has also not had any cosmetic surgery and wants to keep it that way. 

She said: ‘I haven’t done anything and I want to try and stay that way.

‘But I also am like, do whatever works for you. The only thing I do know is don’t judge other people because they do things differently.’

‘We’re all on our own path and we have to support each other,’ the Whip It director said, admitting she has her struggles.

‘I see a lot of turkey neck or I have a lot of other times where I’m like “Oh Wow, we’re there now,”‘ the host noted.

As for self-confidence, she shared, ‘I want to tell myself not to be so mean to myself.’

‘How many beautiful moments do we even get the privilege of seeing our reflection and that person looking back at us is us?’ she posited.

She elaborated, ‘So the kinder, more patient, more resilient, more loving, embracing, less dismissive that we can be, the better it is for our mental game and spiritual game, which affects the face.’

Jamie Lee Curtis 

Inspired by her peer Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis has also been making more a move to pose without makeup on. 

The actress, 67, took a selfie in solidarity the former Playboy model to celebrate ‘ownership of self.’

She showed off her bare face, modeling a white woven sweater after having just stepped out of the shower.

‘Just out of the shower selfie. Honoring @pamelaanderson @lastshowgirl and her no make up ownership of self. Sober. Strong. Steady on…’ she penned in the caption.

Adding, ‘Just noticed that it looks like I have mascara on, which is clearly a remnant of my workday yesterday. Clearly, mommy didn’t wash her face very well.’

Jamie also praised Pamela after for her ‘act of courage and rebellion’ after the Baywatch beauty first went make up free at Paris Fashion Week in 2023. 

She wrote: ‘The natural beauty revolution has officially begun!

‘Pamela Anderson in the middle of fashion week with so many pressures and postures, and and and, this woman showed up and claimed her seat at the table with nothing on her face.

‘I am so impressed and floored by this act of courage and rebellion.’

Molly-Mae Hague

As well as going au natural, plenty of celebrities have also made a move to reverse their plastic surgery and tweakments. 

Arguably one of the most famous influencers in the UK, Molly-Mae Hague entered Love Island back in 2021 having had a variety of cosmetic procedures done. 

Including lip filler, veneers, and jaw filler so severe people online likened her face to her a game controller.  

Molly, now 26, has previously admitted she didn’t recognise herself by the time she reached the age of 21, after the tweakments.

However now the star has completely reverted her image and in 2021 she underwent procedures to have her lip and jaw filler dissolved and her composite bonding veneers removed, saying at the time she was ‘terrified of myself’ when she looked at pictures.

She said on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast: ‘I wouldn’t say I got addicted to it, but by the age of 21, I didn’t look like the same person.

‘I literally looked like a different person. When I look back at pictures now, I’m terrified of myself. I’m like, ‘Who was that girl?’ I don’t know what happened.  

‘But there was this one pivotal moment where I’d gone and got loads of filler and I posted a YouTube video and I hadn’t let the filler settle and it was really swollen and a screenshot from that video, it trended on Twitter for weeks.

‘It was horrendous. It was utterly horrendous. My face was literally like, it was just awful. That was the moment for me as well where I was like, I think things need to change.

‘I thought, one day I’m going to get my lips dissolved. It was a process. I went and got my lips dissolved and I posted about it on YouTube and I didn’t expect the response that I got. It was huge.’

The television personality – who is now back with boxer Tommy Fury after they split last year – now feels more comfortable in her own skin than she ever has done before, confessing she took her fillers to the ‘extreme’.

‘I literally took it to the extreme and I just stripped myself back and weirdly, I felt the prettiest I’d ever felt, once it had all gone.

‘I feel like I’d dropped about five years off my age and it was like, it was a really, really significant moment for me.

‘I didn’t realise how much respect that would get me. I didn’t do it for respect, I did it for myself. I didn’t do it for anyone else, I did it because I knew that I needed to.’

In her candid YouTube vlogs, Molly appears to her fans completely bare-faced, usually with her hair scraped back in a slick bun. 

In September this year for Paris Fashion Week, the star swapped up her look as she ditched the extensions and donned a new choppy bob.  

Heidi Montag

Heidi Montag, who rose to fame at the age of 19 after appearing on the MTV’s The Hills, previously claimed to be ‘beyond obsessed’ with plastic surgery. 

The reality star recalled hitting rock bottom after she infamously had ten plastic surgeries in one day.

In 2009, Heidi had a chin reduction, brow lift, a second nose job, her ears pinned back and a second breast augmentation, among other surgeries, under the supervision of Dr. Frank Ryan.

And, complications from the intensive surgery almost killed her, as she recalled to PAPER magazine that she ‘died for a minute’ on the operating table after her heart stopped.

At the time of the interview, Heidi added that ‘cutting yourself up’ is not something she’d recommend. After the life-threatening incident, she found herself at ‘rock bottom’ and had to re-evaluate what was important to her.

In 2013, she underwent breast reduction surgery to remove her size F breast implants.

‘They were so heavy they were falling through the skin,’ she says. ‘It was just too heavy for my body and I was in pain and uncomfortable all the time. I thought, ‘What do I need this big of breasts for?” 

In 2019, she revealed that she regrets the drastic procedures, and wishes she had waited until she was older before making such ‘life-changing’ decisions. 

‘I was just really self-involved at the time – like so many young people – but I was also on TV where every perceived flaw is amplified. I think I looked in the mirror a little too much,’ she told Cosmopolitan.

Chloe Ferry

Chloe Ferry might have made a name for herself in recent years with her surgically enhanced derriere, but had her BBL removed earlier this year. 

She first had her Brazilian Butt Lift surgery in 2017, but was left suffering from depression following the ‘botched’ procedure.

Yet this summer the star took to Instagram to display her new frame post-op and significantly reduced backside.

She wrote: ‘7 months post op for my BBL removal and what a journey it has been! It’s mad because on the videos when I had my BBL, you would’ve thought i was the most confident, outgoing person who loved myself and my body but the reality was I was very unhappy inside and out.’

The star believes that the trolling she endured in the public eye is what led to her spending a whopping £50,000 on surgeries after her ‘mental health and confidence’ took a hit.

She said: ‘Looking back I don’t even recognise who I was as a person its actually really sad.

‘I have learnt a lot about myself being on this journey of self love but like I say, in life everything is a lesson even though I’m really disappointed for what I put myself through to look and feel perfect. 

‘You just need to be happy within. And even though I’m not there yet, I know I’m on the way. Looking at this video just shows how I’ve come to get back to my old self and I am starting to feel a lot more confident and sexy within myself [sic].’