{"id":32574,"date":"2025-07-30T04:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/32574\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T04:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:01:09","slug":"sorry-mariah-ageing-happens-to-all-of-us-even-if-youre-famous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/32574\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry, Mariah,\u00a0ageing happens to all of us \u2014 even if you\u2019re famous"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel as if even those of us who don\u2019t know very much about Mariah Carey actually know rather a lot. I for one have long been wasting far too much of my cerebral cortex on the notorious demands on her riders over the years. The 20 white kittens. The 100 doves. The, erm, tall leafy plants. If I could just unknow this stuff, maybe I would be able to recall what happened in the last chapter of the book I am reading.<\/p>\n

And now here is something else I will never be able to unremember. Her declaration in this month\u2019s Harper\u2019s Bazaar that she is refusing to age. \u201cI don\u2019t allow it \u2014 it just doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know time. I don\u2019t know numbers. I do not acknowledge time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement is not only squatting in my brain but frying it. I mean, right. Sure. OK. Whatever you say, Mariah. You don\u2019t know time. The problem is that, even with all the will, and money, and plastic surgery, in the world, time knows you. It\u2019s annoying like that, time. You can decide that you aren\u2019t having anything to do with it but it will continue to be relentlessly on your case. Like a bad ex. Or Always Be My Baby on repeat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mariah Carey: Ageing doesn\u2019t happen to me and I won\u2019t allow it<\/a><\/p>\n

As for not knowing numbers, I must admit that I frequently forget that I am 53. I am not sure that is quite what Carey means, however. Not least because instead I think I am 52. Indeed, while we are on the pesky subject of numbers, particularly double-digit ones that start with a 5, Carey herself is 56. Or at least she would be if she acknowledged such things.<\/p>\n

In truth, all that Carey has done is given voice to the delusion long made manifest in the faces of women across entertainment. She is merely saying what they are attempting to do, which is to eradicate any sign that they are growing older.<\/p>\n

Carey\u2019s face on the cover of Harper\u2019s Bazaar is, of course, as disconcertingly smooth and shiny as a grapefruit. But, let\u2019s be clear, a face like that doesn\u2019t look ageless. It looks other. There\u2019s a difference between positive thinking and delusional thinking, not that living in fear and\/or denial of ageing has anything positive about it, in truth. And there\u2019s a difference in what plastic surgery promises to give someone and what it actually delivers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most striking recent example of woman as pomelo is Kris Jenner, who has remade a face that had already been remade, and who, as a result, at 69 really does look quite remarkably like her daughter Kim Kardashian, who is 44. Not that \u2014 and warning, this stuff can get confusing \u2014 Kim Kardashian looks like Kim Kardashian, given all the work she has had. She also doesn\u2019t look 44. And neither of them looks entirely human.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ulrika Jonsson: I\u2019m smart and kind. My wrinkles shouldn\u2019t matter<\/a><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the rub. Let me hand over to Jane Fonda at this point, who is now 87 but shared with Vogue, when she was a whippersnapper of 84, her views on ageing. \u201cJust because you\u2019re a certain age doesn\u2019t mean you have to give up on life, give up on having fun, give up on having boyfriends or girlfriends, making new friends or whatever you want to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fonda\u2019s an especially interesting case in this context because she has mucked around with her face too. \u201cI had a facelift and I stopped because I don\u2019t want to look distorted,\u201d she continued. \u201cI\u2019m not proud of the fact that I had [one].\u201d <\/p>\n

Her advice for how to look your best as you grow older? \u201cI stay moisturised, I sleep, I move, I stay out of the sun and I have good friends who make me laugh. Laughter is a good thing too.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, in marked contrast to Carey, Fonda says, \u201cI always tell people what my age is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I feel as if even those of us who don\u2019t know very much about Mariah Carey actually know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-32574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}