Joey King Admits She Still Struggles With Beauty Standards in the Age of Social Media
Despite being a huge Hollywood star, Joey King still struggles to live up to impossible beauty standards.
While growing up in the age of social media and facial filters, the A Family Affair actress, 25, admitted the pressure to be perfect gets to her even with access to makeup artists, stylists and top glam professionals.
While promoting her new film, Uglies — which focuses on a society where everyone is considered "ugly" until their 16th birthday when the government makes them undergo plastic surgery — King related deeply to the theme of the project. "Just because we're making a movie about this doesn't mean we don't still do that ourselves," she said.
The Kissing Booth star explained how even though she has a full team to make her look her best, she still constantly thinks, "'Do I look okay?'"
King's costar Brianne Tju added in agreement, "Beauty standards and ideals, especially pushed on women, have existed forever, and it's constantly changing and it's hard to keep up with trends. But now we have social media on top of it, and we all have access to filters and Facetune and, nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it feels like you're obligated to look a certain way or to use these filters when it really should just be a choice and it should be, ‘How does it make you feel?’… I don’t think we question that enough.”
The Act alum has always been open about remaining down to earth despite growing up in showbiz. As Morning Honey previously reported, King admitted she got herself into therapy to better understand herself.
"Being an actor is so tough, because you have this image of who you are and what kind of image you want to present to other people, when in reality you have no control of what people think of you," she explained in a 2021 interview.
King noted how she "started to see the downside of people having so much information about you or to your personality or personal information" and that "being able to pay attention to why you feel a certain way and being able to be OK with that” is a huge step in the process of knowing who you truly are.
"I try not put too much pressure on myself, because I always feel like I have," the former child star continued. "So being able to be like, ‘Hey, it’s OK that you’re anxious,' or ‘It’s OK you’re overwhelmed and only answer one email.’ Just being able to say that, I feel better."
Extra conducted the interview with King and Tju.