Julia Roberts is one of Hollywood's most successful leading ladies…and she's certainly faced
her fair share of real-life drama over the years.
Is America's sweetheart really as sweet as she seems?
Here are some questionable things that everyone just ignores about the A-list star.
Playing an escort in the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman was a risky move for Julia Roberts
- especially when you consider the fact she was still making a name for herself in Hollywood.
In 1991, she told Entertainment Weekly:
"When people indicate that I knew what I was getting into, I say, 'You must be mad!
No one can know!'"
But playing the role wasn't the only risk she took.
Her character research got plenty down n' dirty: In order to prepare for the part, she
spent some time with real-life working girls.
This arrangement was made possible by Barbara Marshall, the wife of the film''s director,
Garry Marshall.
In 2019, Barbara told Page Six,
"I recruited two young women...and I paid them $35 each to meet with Julia.
I went back to work, and about 20 minutes later, Julia yelled from the end of the hall,
'Bye, Barbara.
We're going to take a drive.
We'll be back later.'"
Barbara panicked and called Garry, saying,
"Your star just left with a group of girls, and I think they were heading to Hollywood
Boulevard.
I'm worried.
What if she doesn't come back?"
Of course, Roberts did come back, presumably to the Marshalls' relief.
Meanwhile, the plot of Pretty Woman faced a fair degree of criticism upon release.
For example, Entertainment Weekly's review includes this memorable passage:
"Pretty Woman pretends to be about how love transcends money, but...the film is really
obsessed with status symbols.
It's saying Roberts' character becomes a better person when she lands a rich guy and learns
to cry at the opera."
Getting plastic surgery can be a controversial choice, but so can not getting plastic surgery
- especially if you work in the entertainment industry.
In 2014, when Julia Roberts was 46 years old, she told You magazine,
"By Hollywood standards, I guess I've already taken a big risk in not having had a facelift."
Roberts was already thinking along those lines in 2010 when she told Elle,
"It's unfortunate that we live in such a panicked...society where women don't even give themselves a chance
to see what they'll look like as older persons.
I want to have some idea of what I'll look like before I start cleaning the slates.
I want my kids to know when I'm pissed, when I'm happy, and when I'm confounded.
Your face tells a story...and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's
office."
Roberts does admit she's had a little work done, telling Access Hollywood Live in 2012,
"I tried the Botox one time and was permanently surprised for a couple months and it was not
a cute look for me."
She goes on to say,
"It's whatever works for the person.
I don't want to judge somebody who can't turn their head or move their lips.
I don't know - if you want your chin on your forehead I'm not one to [judge].
If that's going to bring you joy, I'm all for it."
In 1991, Julia Roberts starred in Sleeping with the Enemy, a film that tackled domestic
violence, albeit in a hackneyed, overly melodramatic way.
In theory, this could be construed as a brave role to take on, but the film wasn't particularly
well-received.
"Come quickly.
I've just killed an intruder."
Film critic Roger Ebert gave Sleeping with the Enemy 1.5 stars, writing that,
"[It's] a slasher movie in disguise, an up-market version of the old exploitation formula where
the victim can run, but she can't hide."
In 1996, Roberts appeared in the horror film Mary Reilly…
"Mary Reilly!"
She played the maid of a certain Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but once again, the film didn't
receive much love.
The New York Times review claimed that,
"Ms. Roberts [looks] sheltered and maidenly as only a high-priced movie queen can...She
gives a solemnly repetitive performance without much spark."
The review did make a point to say,
"Clearly Ms. Roberts has the makings of a serious actress and the wherewithal to become
one, but Mary Reilly offers a vehicle that is unrelievedly grim."
She ultimately earned a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress.
Julia Roberts was once considered one of America's sweethearts - heck, she even appeared in a
film with that title - but she eventually decided to ditch that title.
In 2003, she told Oprah,
"Somebody else is always going to be the next sweetheart.
It's all contrivance: Label them as fast as you can so you can keep them all straight."
Ten years later, MTV asked Roberts how she felt about Jennifer Lawrence being labelled
America's sweetheart, and she responded,
"How many are there of us?
My card is expired, and I didn't get a new one."
As Buzzfeed puts it,
"Roberts learned firsthand the way she could never live up to the image of her that the
press had created."
She also told Oprah Winfrey:
"I couldn't be an ingenue today, because the business has changed.
I remember when you could dress for a premiere just by putting on a cute top.
Now you have to be perfect and fabulous in every way, or you're ridiculed."
"Well, there's just a lot of anonymity now for critiquing people and pretending that
you know people."
Julia Roberts' personal life has indeed faced a fair amount of scrutiny…particularly her
alleged penchant for getting romantically involved with her co-stars.
In 1999, Vanity Fair wrote that
"The awful truth [is] out: Julia Roberts had a weakness for leading men, particularly her
own leading men, including Liam Neeson (Satisfaction), Dylan McDermott (Steel Magnolias), and Kiefer
Sutherland (Flatliners)."
The article also claimed that
"Within months, [Roberts] had mutated into the mainstream media's favorite piñata, thrashed
by non-tabloid publications such as Newsweek, which fanned 'reports' from the British tabloids;
[and] People, which ran a sidebar comparing her box-office grosses with those of Kiefer
Sutherland."
Roberts told Vanity Fair,
"I don't think I realized that the cost of fame is that it's open season on every moment
of your life."
After it was reported that she'd spent a wild night dancing with Ethan Hawke, she issued
a statement, saying,
"I love to dance, and I will continue to dance.
In fact, I plan on doing as much dancing, with as many people, as possible.
I will dance until I drop.
How about that?"
Sure, that works.
Exactly what happened between Julia Roberts and actor Kiefer Sutherland?
According to Vanity Fair,
"Roberts was engaged to Kiefer Sutherland [in 1991], whom she then dumped three days
before the big event...because of his acquaintance with the enormously buxom Amanda Rice-or just
plain ol' "Raven," as she was known over at L.A.'s Crazy Girls Live Exotic Strip Show."
That same year, Roberts opened up about the situation, telling Entertainment Weekly,
"It became something that was taking on speed, that everybody was going to have to know about.
So it was a much bigger decision than just having to say to somebody, 'Let's not do this.'...And
that also probably delayed my ability to realize what I had to realize - that I can't give
a s-- about some lady in Boise who thinks I made the biggest mistake of my life."
As for Sutherland, he apparently doesn't hold a grudge.
In 2016, he told People,
"I think she had the courage.
You know, it wasn't what she wanted to do in the end."
He goes on to say:
"[I] think it took a lot of courage...to be able to say, I can't do this.
And I'll just leave it at that."
Maybe she's born with it…Frankly, we have our doubts.
In 2011, Julia Roberts got caught up in something of a scandal regarding a few make-up ads that
were branded "misleading."
The L'Oréal campaign - which prominently featured the star - was banned in the UK for
being overly airbrushed.
British politician Jo Swinson, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said at the
time,
"The retouching wasn't even just stylistic.
It was actually trying to pretend that the product would achieve something which it clearly
wouldn't achieve."
Guy Parker, CEO of The Advertising Standards Authority, explained to the BBC that L'Oreal
couldn't show how much retouching had been done to the ad's images, noting that,
"Advertisers must be able to provide appropriate material to us to demonstrate what retouching
they've done in the event we question them, and they mustn't mislead."
Meanwhile, Swinson told the BBC,
"There's a big picture here which is half of young women between 16 and 21 say they
would consider cosmetic surgery and we've seen eating disorders more than double in
the last 15 years.
There's a problem out there with body image and confidence.
The way excessive retouching has become pervasive in our society is contributing to that problem."
Julia Roberts met her current husband, cameraman Daniel Moder, on the set of The Mexican.
At the time, Roberts was still dating former Law & Order actor Benjamin Bratt.
Remember him?
"You don't think it's funny that you worked on the building where this watch salesman
was killed by a guy who had the business card of the guy who treated your employees two
years ago?"
Meanwhile, Moder was still married to makeup artist Vera Steimberg.
In 2002, Moder's ex-wife opened up to the Sun about the messy situation, saying:
"I'll never be able to forgive Julia - she's a husband stealer."
Steimberg also didn't seem to think that Roberts' relationship with Moder would stand the test
of time, saying,
"It won't last with her anyway.
She will be looking for a new husband within a year...Danny has a roving eye...and he won't
change."
Despite this prickly prediction, Roberts and Moder were married in 2002 and celebrated
their 17th wedding anniversary in 2019.
In 2003, Roberts talked to Oprah winfrey about her husband, saying that their marriage is
a major factor in her overall contentment:
"My husband, Danny, has really shined the light for me.
Because of being married, I've met people and experienced all these little things that
have nurtured my life - not so much changed it, just nurtured it in a way that's astounding."
Back in April 1999, much ado was made over the fact that Julia Roberts showed up to the
premiere of Notting Hill and waved to the crowd, showing off her hairy armpits.
Writer Marci Robin reflected on the moment for Allure in 2018, recalling,
"I personally remember widespread conversation about the moment nearly upstaging the movie's
opening weekend, and a little stealth Googling reveals that tabloids made unsubstantiated
claims about Roberts's motives ranging from making a feminist statement to wearing her
body hair the way then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt preferred."
Robin goes on to write that,
"Roberts said pretty much nothing about what more judgmental observers considered a beauty
faux pas, only adding to the impression that she didn't give a fuzz."
Oddly enough, people are still mulling over this nontroversy all these years later - Julia
Roberts included.
When she appeared on Busy Tonight with Busy Philipps in 2018, she explained that,
"I think I just hadn't really calculated my sleeve length and the waving and how those
two things would go together and reveal personal things about me."
"So it wasn't so much a statement…"
"Right."
"...as it's just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet for myself."
And when Philipps posted this section of the interview on Instagram, she grandly proclaimed
in the caption that,
"Oh you know, just one of the most iconic, feminist red carpet moments ever, broken down
by the queen herself, @JuliaRoberts…We're so here for it."
The Cannes Film Festival is one of the industry's most prestigious events - and it has a notoriously
strict dress code.
That's why people had so much to say in 2016, when Julia Roberts decided to show up to the
event barefoot.
Strutting down the red carpet, she was dressed in a sleek black Armani Privé gown and a
stunning jeweled necklace.
So far, so good…but her barefootedness raised plenty of eyebrows.
As Vanity Fair noted,
"This blatant act of fashion rebellion [came] just a year after festival organizers allegedly
turned away a group of women in their 50s from a screening of Carol for not wearing
high heels."
Regarding the Carol premiere, Screen Daily reported that,
"The festival declined to comment on the matter, but did confirm that it is obligatory for
all women to wear high-heels to red-carpet screenings."
Roberts offered a perfect response to Australia's Sunrise channel,
"A lot was happening from my ankles up.
Let's not forget all that.
A lot of time and effort went into ankles up.
I just want to say for the record...I looked nice last night!"
There's no doubt about that.
Meanwhile, Vanity Fair claimed that,
"Making it at least part of the way down a Cannes red carpet without shoes is one small
step for gender parity in dress codes."
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