The must-read article is a response to film critic Owen Gleiberman’s column published last week in Variety.
The piece in question, titled “Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself Has She Become a Different Actress?”, was published after the latest trailer for Bridget Jones’s Baby was released.
It saw Owen Gleiberman criticise Renee’s new look and cosmetic surgery in Hollywood overall. He also had a dig at Zoe Saldana, saying she ‘doesn’t look remotely like’ Nina Simone in new biopic Nina.
However American actress Rose McGowan, whose credits include Scream, Charmed, and Grindhouse-Planet Terror, was having none of it, jumping to the defence of Renee Zellweger and calling out Glieberman’s article as reflecting the broader issue of misogyny in Hollywood.
She writes: ‘Renee Zellweger is a human being, with feelings, with a life, with love and with triumphs and struggles, just like the rest of us… How dare you bully a woman who has done nothing but try to entertain people like you. Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve of anything?.
‘What you are doing is vile, damaging, stupid and cruel. It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege… You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women. I speak as someone who was abused by Hollywood and by people like you in the media, but I’m a different breed, one they didn't count on. I refuse and reject this bullshit on behalf of those who feel they can't speak.’
She concluded with a cutting remark: ‘You are simply a bully on semiglossy paper.’
McGowan’s piece can be read in full via The Hollywood Reporter.
