Woman in Hollywood Lies about Age, People Shocked for Some Reason

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | May 19, 2015 |

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | May 19, 2015 |

Yesterday, news broke that someone in Hollywood might be lying about something. Holy shit, right?! Also that person might be a woman and the thing she’s lying about might be her age.

Sit down. I’ll get the smelling salts.

Rebel Wilson English McMuffined her way into our hearts after Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2. She’s a delight and we love her. But now some vindictive former classmate has shared Rebel’s high school yearbook photos to deliver the truth about her former self.

Oh shoot, sorry, wrong one.

First, I’m bad at this kind of thing, but am I wrong in thinking those photos look nothing like her? Secondly, if Rebel Wilson and Melanie Bownds are the same person, holy shit, what an overachiever.

The source also insists that no one remembers her as ever being funny at all, which is a pretty assy move, source.

So basically the story is that a performer changed their name (SHOCKING AND UNHEARD OF) and that a female performer is lying about her age (ALSO SHOCKING AND ALSO UNHEARD OF).

Except Wilson herself is already on top of this, has already said the age listed for her online is wrong. She just didn’t feel compelled to correct it. Why should she? In an industry that, despite the protestations of Russell Crowe, ignores women over “a certain age” and an age that perhaps Wilson is rapidly approaching, why the hell would she want to mess with that? Women have been conditioned to believe that youth and therefore life ends at a certain point, and yes we all obviously know that’s stupid and not true but Hollywood is the capital of Stupid and Not True (it’s a sub-county of Los Angeles). Lots of stars are allegedly lying about their ages. It sucks that they have to, but I get it. Would one allegedly lying star have the Oscar she does now or have been launched as a sex symbol after her breakthrough role if she’d been older than she claimed? Is a certain biggest star in the world actually seven years older than she says she is, as some outlets seem to believe?

Ultimately, who cares? We don’t. We shouldn’t. But Hollywood does. Women in the industry lie about their ages for the same reasons they feel compelled to get plastic surgery to appear younger. Because the entertainment industry is a suck place for women.

Be she 29 or 36 or a 100-year-old mermaid (the latter has been confirmed), Rebel Wilson doesn’t owe us shit. She doesn’t owe us the truth about her age or her name or anything else. Hollywood owes her and all the other women in this situation the chance to not have to pretend to be someone else just to have a shot.