9 Times Celebrity Women Showed Off Their Body Hair, and Explained Why

Over the years, female body hair has become taboo, and many women spend lots of time and money trying to get rid of it. Luckily, more and more celebrities have started to embrace and normalize their body hair, inspiring women all over the world to finally admit there’s nothing wrong with choosing not to shave.

We at Bright Side applaud these brave and confident celebs who aren’t afraid to show that they couldn’t care less about their body hair.

1. Ashley Graham

This supermodel and a mom-of-3 shared a selfie with her arm raised showing her armpit hair soon after welcoming her first child. She made it clear she doesn’t feel ashamed of her body hair and, as a new mom, has more important things to worry about. “Raise your hand if you didn’t know you’d be changing your own diapers too. No one talks about the recovery and healing new moms go through. It’s been tough,” she wrote.

2. Emily Ratajkowski

The top model wrote a powerful personal essay and opened up about her approach to femininity. “If I decide to shave my armpits or grow them out, that’s up to me. For me, body hair is another opportunity for women to exercise their ability to choose — a choice based on how they want to feel and their associations with having or not having body hair,” she shared.

3. Madonna

The award-winning singer was one of the first celebrities who wasn’t afraid to show off her body hair. She shared a selfie on her Instagram account writing, “Long hair... Don’t care!” The “Girl Gone Wild” singer shared that growing up, she refused to remove her body hair. “Going to high school, I saw how popular girls had to behave to get the boys. I knew I couldn’t fit into that. So I decided to do the opposite. I refused to wear makeup, to have a hairstyle. I refused to shave. I had hairy armpits,” she said.

4. Julia Roberts

The Oscar winner famously showed off her armpit hair on the red carpet in 1999. “The picture is vivid in my mind actually from that moment. I think I just hadn’t really calculated my sleeve length and the waving, and how those 2 things would go together and reveal personal things about me. So it wasn’t so much a statement as it’s just part of the statement I make as a human on the planet, for myself,” she explained later.

5. Adele

The “Hello” singer is known for speaking her mind, and when asked about whether her ex-boyfriend Simon Konecki minded when she didn’t shave her legs for a month, she didn’t hold back. “He has no choice. I’ll have no man telling me to shave my legs. Shave yours,” she said.

6. Amandla Stenberg

The As You Are star proudly put her armpit hair in the spotlight on the red carpet in 2018. The non-binary actress said that being confident about her body image has helped her with her gender identity. “I tend to believe that gender, as we’ve set it up in current-day society, doesn’t actually exist. I’ve said before that I’m comfortable with using the pronouns ‘they’ or ‘them’ alongside ‘she’ and ‘her’ just because that’s a conversation that’s important to me,” she shared.

7. Bekah Martinez

The former Bachelor contestant wasn’t shy to show off her body hair, and opened up about embracing it on her Instagram account. “I went to a red carpet event without shaving my legs! It was a big deal for me. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I feel (almost) totally comfortable like this. I stopped shaving my legs and armpits about a year ago as a practice of self-love,” she wrote.

8. Alyssa Milano

The Melrose Place actress embraced her armpit hair in a selfie, writing, “Armpit hair, don’t care.” Accepting her natural beauty is important for the mother-of-2, and she posted earlier on her Twitter account that she’s “learned to accept her hairy arms.”

9. Emma Watson

The Harry Potter film series star doesn’t shy away from topics people normally feel uncomfortable talking about. “In the Instagram era, it’s so easy to edit your life so that it looks perfect. But I bleach my top lip and tweeze my eyebrows and you’d never get to see that, even though it’s a part of my routine. There’s still so much shame around the things you do to get ready while you’ve got a towel wrapped around your head. It’s important to me not to edit that out,” she said.

Whose words resonated with you the most? If you were a celebrity, would you remove your body hair or proudly show it off?