To the actress who cried over unflattering Oscars party photo – get a grip

In case you were worried there wasn’t enough eye-rolling news at the moment, a minor scandal has emerged from Los Angeles: an actress has reportedly been left devastated by photos taken of her at an Oscars afterparty.

So devastated, in fact, that the unnamed A-Lister apparently ran home and cried herself to sleep. 

As a long-time entertainment journalist, I have always been a supporter of celebrities and their frothiness, but this latest revelation has left me deeply frustrated with a world I have loved for so long.

I can’t help but think – get a grip.

Across the globe, when we’re dealing with actual, tangible problems — wars, political upheaval, real threats to our freedoms — it’s jarring that this is still where we are, surrounded by tone deaf celebrities failing to read the room. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the iconic Vanity Fair afterparty after the Oscars on Sunday night caused a right old stir due to ‘unflattering photos’ being taken of the esteemed guests on the red carpet.

The popular culture magazine’s new editor Mark Guiducci moved the prestigious bash from its usual venue, the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which posed a problem: terrible red carpet lighting after someone ‘forgot’ to bring a dimmer. Oh dear.

An Oscars party source told THR that the Vanity Fair party was always known for making ‘even the ugliest stars’ look incredible (charming). 

Another source who attended the weekend’s event – which saw the likes of Demi Moore, Michael B Jordan, Sarah Paulson and Julia Fox in attendance – also told the magazine: ‘It was so crazy-bright there, I felt like I was standing under klieg lights.’

Apparently, the lighting was just ‘so unforgiving’, a real kick in the perfect teeth for stars used to perfection and controlling everything around them.

This lighting was apparently so offensive that it showed off ‘excess pounds and wrinkles that used to be hidden’ and was reportedly so upsetting for one unnamed actress she ‘went home and cried herself to sleep’.

After being glued to her phone scrolling through the pictures that had made their way to the nastier corners of social media, and ‘shrieking at her publicist’, sources claim she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

A part of me initially felt a shred of compassion – after all, these stars are built up and ensconced in a world where appearance matters too much. And to be mocked by idiots on social media is, admittedly, pretty grim.  

So of course, seeing yourself in a certain kind of lighting that maybe doesn’t reflect your absolute best self might be a bit of a shock.

We’ve all been there. I’m not pretending I haven’t baulked at a candid photo of myself and my chins. I also can’t pretend to know what it must be like being in the public eye and feeling an even more intense pressure to look a certain way.

But if you are a Hollywood star, then the theatrics of crying yourself to sleep and disappearing from view over a bad photo is where my sympathy runs out.

Even with the social media mockery, there must come a point where you – a person in the public eye – has to learn to move past it, understand these people are in the business of getting clicks and actually mean nothing to you. 

Pity them, if anything. Be the bigger person and get over it. You still look bloody great — and you have the money and power to look even better. 

We all know Hollywood is a bit ridiculous. Mostly wonderful, escapist ridiculousness — the glitz, the drama, the relationships. It’s part of our culture, tickling the dopamine spots in our brains when shit is getting too real.

And yet, moments like this feel a bit vile — and maybe even dangerous. 

It’s not a great message to be sending out that how you look in a handful of pictures at one event in the dozens of events you’re going to attend that year is enough to shatter your world so deeply.

And for us civilians, there is something wonderfully refreshing about seeing our beloved stars as ‘less than perfect’ (because in all honesty, they all still look incredible, even with that stark ‘big light in the living room’ effect). 

It’s a nice antidote to all that online fakery that we’re all getting so used to.

A bad photo might sting, but it’s not the end of the world. Crying yourself to sleep over a photo that may make your jawline look 5% less sharp, when people in the world are unable to sleep due to hunger and missiles flying overhead, is really not OK.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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