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Helen Mirren Praises Kim Kardashian for Changing Beauty Standards

While Helen Mirren, at 70, is happy about “finally being relieved of the whole sex-symbol tag,” she’s impressed by how the new generation of starlets — Kim Kardashian included — have turned the ideal of sex-symbol beauty on its head.

“I’m not into the Kardashians, it’s a phenomenon I just don’t find interesting, but — and this is the big word: B-U-T-T — it’s wonderful that you’re allowed to have a butt nowadays!” Mirren told the Sunday Telegraph magazine. “Thanks to Madame Kardashian, and before her, J-Lo. We’re also allowed to have thighs now, which is great too. It’s very positive.”

Praise for Kardashian — at least around her being an empowering symbol — is not a common refrain; criticism is heard more frequently, as with recent outrage from such folks as Bette Midler and Chloë Grace Moretz, who felt her nude-selfie “movement” had gone too far.

But Mirren, who spoke with the magazine in Cannes recently as the brand ambassador for festival partner L’Oréal Paris, was impressed with Kardashian and went on about the brazenness of the younger set.

“When I was growing up, it was thought to be unbelievably sluttish to even have a bra strap showing. Everything was about women conforming. I love shameless women. Shameless and proud!” she said. “Women were controlled by being shamed, so I love women who have claimed their own bodies: Madonna, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Bonnie Raitt. I love Pussy Riot more than anything in the world. They all raise their middle fingers to this epithet of ‘slut.’ They wear what they want to wear, behave as they want to behave.”

Mirren was chosen by L’Oréal, manager Elen Macaskill told the Telegraph, for being “brilliant, irreverent, beautiful, sexy and quintessentially British.” Still, Mirren, whose tagline is “Gold, not old,” has a demand that L’Oréal never retouch her image — and she also claims to have “absolutely no beauty regime.”

“I sunbathe — I know I shouldn’t but I love sitting in the sun,” she explained. “I drink wine and occasionally I’ll drink to excess. I eat french fries. I’ve never managed to go to the gym for longer than two months. I always forget to take my vitamins.”

Mirren continued, “I’ve done everything but I haven’t done too much of anything — I’ve never had a Coca-Cola, ever. Sometimes I use hotel body lotion as conditioner for my hair. I’m not particular. Life is too short and too precious.”

She’s humble too — and admits to still having insecurities, even after a lifetime of glamorous fame, while hanging out in Cannes. “Well, it’s terribly intimidating, you know. It’s very hard, with all these amazing women — glorious creatures — and their clothes and their makeup … Sometimes you feel wonderful and — it’s the same whether you’re 13 or 26 or 86 — sometimes you feel insecure and frightened. That can change five or six times a day.”

Still, Mirren noted, there are plenty of advantages to aging. “For me, one of the best things about getting older is finally being relieved of the whole sex-symbol tag. There is good and bad in aging. Each age you become reveals a new person you’ve become. I loved being young but I’ve enjoyed every stage in different ways.”

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