It isn’t all sunshine, roses, and champagne for Hollywood stars, celebrities, and the rich and famous. They are after all, people, too, just like you and me. They have their own share of shortcomings, frailties, challenges, disappointments, and humanness. Here are some surprising revelations and admirable wisdom culled from the University of Life by some of your favorite celebs:
Diminutive but stunning Hollywood actress Selma Hayek is all of five foot, two inches. She declares, "I’m grateful for my shortness, because if I had been tall, I might have ended up a model or Miss Mexico – and what a miserable existence that would have been. So, I thank God for my shortness because it didn’t take me in those directions."
Exotic supermodel Naomi Campbell doesn’t feel alive unless she’s in fast-forward motion. "One time, there was this terrible (airplane) turbulence, and everyone was screaming, terrified," she recalls. "The guy next to me asked, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ I said, ‘God, no, I love it. It means we’re moving.’"
Box-office star Sandra Bullock had this to say about growing up: "I hated my whole childhood, hated it, hated it, hated it. There was no place for me. I was not accepted here. I was noticeably different. I was awkward. I was in the wrong clothes. I would get the shit kicked out of me constantly… but I’m thankful for it now because it definitely gives you the empathetic view of humanity. If you don’t get knocked around and abused, you’re not going to learn to see that in yourself and what’s in other people."
Could this be the source of the legendary Sandra Bullock kindness? She donated a cool million dollars to the tsunami-relief effort. Asked why she did it, she simply replied, "I was able."
"I’m here to prove you can follow your dreams!" bridal fashion designer/entrepreneur Vera Wang declares. "I put my dream on the shelf for years, since I was 18, when my dad refused to send me to FIT." Vera’s father, C. C. Wang, a Chinese pharmaceutical industrialist, finally gave in and backed her bridal business in 1990, but not until she was 40. And she built it into a multi-million-dollar business.
Vera coaxes people to forget the fairy tale associated with her rise to fame and fortune. "Getting to this stage has taken a lifetime. It took a lot of courage. Nobody’s pushed me through. I struggle every day," she confides.
Before there were J.Lo, Cris Judd’s cutie, Puff Daddy’s gun-around date, all the gold albums and sell out concerts, Bennifer (the short-lived Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez tandem), and lately Mrs. Marc Anthony (yes, she got hitched to Miss Universe Dayanara Torres’ ex), she was a struggling Puerto Rican dancer from the Bronx. Jennifer Lopez looks back at her early stinker movies with an admirable sense of humor.
"When you’re just starting out, you’re like, ‘They offered me what? And I’m the lead? In the jungle? I’ll take it!’ I was happy to get
Anaconda. I was happy to get all the movies I did." (Well, the girl had to start somewhere, but look at her now.)
At an early age, Kim Basinger’s beauty caused her unforgettable inner turmoil. Her friends failed to recognize her good looks, tormenting her about her height and thick lips, taunting her with names like "Tall Tree" and "Nigger Lips." When she was four or five, she told her father she wanted an operation done to diminish her pout.
"My father would say, ‘Someday, you’re going to make money with those lips,’" she recalls. Little did she know that her voluptuous mouth would make men weak in the knees; never did she foresee the day when people would go as far as having injections of collagen to achieve those plump, sexy smackers.
Hilary Swank was once a nobody with a fierce Hollywood dream. As a kid, she was "always lonely." Her parents "struggled in their relationship," and her older brother, Dan, was "never around." She lived in a trailer park, but never thought, "Oh, poor me, I’m living in a trailer park." She focused on the positive side and instead said proudly, "We had a double-wider." (Status-wise, a double wide trailer is better than a single.)
Hilary spent hours watching movies of Meryl Streep and Debra Winger, mesmerized at their seamless performances. Life changed when she won an Academy Award nomination for her gender-transcending performance in
Boys Don’t Cry, saying she felt like "I’ve been shot out of a cannon. Just months before, a virtual unknown; all of a sudden…" global!
Suddenly, top designers were calling, wanting her to wear their gowns. Then, as in a dream, the girl from the trailer park in Bellingham, Washington, was on the red carpet alongside her idol, Meryl Streep. Of course, the Oscar went to her, stealing the thunder from the other heavyweight nominees, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore.
"Three thousand dollars was all I made that whole year (that was what she was paid for
Boys Don’t Cry)," she says, "I had an Academy Award, but I didn’t have health insurance."
Sure, life is a struggle and the universe can be unfair, but never sulk over today’s miseries. Instead, look forward to tomorrow’s surprises.
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