FRESH FACES

Actress Duo Goes Bare-Faced in Dramatic On-Air Transformation

The actresses got un-ready together on camera.

Drew Barrymore and Kristen Bell just gave daytime TV a serious make-under.

The actresses, 51 and 46, respectively, got unready together during Monday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. Bell kicked things off by unclipping her hair extensions and setting them aside on the couch, prompting Barrymore to follow suit as the pair wiped away their makeup.

“You were the inspiration for me suggesting this, because there’s no other show you could do this on,” Bell told the host as they began stripping away their makeup.

“I can’t be like, ‘I’m gonna go on another talk show and take out my hair extensions,’” the Nobody Wants This star joked, imagining another host telling her that wasn’t exactly the plan for their interview.

Bell credited the Charlie’s Angels actress’s free-spirited approach to daytime TV for making the unusual beauty moment possible, calling her “so full of whimsy” and “so full of loving life.”

But the glam-free transformation wasn’t just for laughs. Bell said her daughters, Lincoln, 13, and Delta, 11, whom she shares with husband Dax Shepard, inspired her to rethink what makeup means.

“I feel like I came to this conclusion a couple years ago when my girls started wanting to experiment with like makeup and appearances,” she explained.

Her advice to them? “It’s not about concealment, it’s about creativity.”

“And for some reason when I taught that to them, I also finally heard it for the first time myself,” she added.

The Frozen star said the barefaced look isn’t a departure from her everyday routine. She frequently skips makeup in real life and doesn’t see the point in getting dolled up just to post a photo online.

“I wasn’t born with makeup on,” Bell said. “I’ll survive if I post something on social media without makeup on, and I want other girls to feel—[or] anybody to feel—that it’s not mandatory.”

She said Shepard, 51, has embraced a similarly judgment-free approach to their daughters’ evolving styles—and sometimes handles their experiments better than she does.

“Dax is a very no-shame person in general,” she said, explaining that his experience with sobriety has made him particularly conscious of how damaging shame can be.

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Still, she joked, their parenting hasn’t faced any truly outrageous fashion challenges just yet. The girls haven’t tried leaving the house without pants, for example.

The couple’s bigger priority, Bell said, is teaching their children to embrace “internal validation as opposed to external validation,” rather than seeking approval for how they look.

Barrymore, meanwhile, is no stranger to shedding her makeup on air. The talk show host has previously gone barefaced for beauty segments, including a 2024 appearance with Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown.

Bell isn’t opposed to more intensive beauty treatments, either. In a 2020 NewBeauty interview, she said she enjoyed oxygen facials and received Clear + Brilliant laser treatments twice a year. She has also discussed undergoing Morpheus8, a radiofrequency microneedling treatment.

And Bell has been vocal about the deeper work behind her beauty philosophy. Speaking to People in September, she said motherhood forced her to examine her own insecurities.

“I can’t give my girls anything I don’t already have,” she said.

“If I wanted them to have a positive body image, I had to get a positive body image,” Bell explained. “I had to become comfortable in my own skin.”

That work is ongoing, she admitted. Bell said she still has days when she feels “awful and useless,” but finds reassurance by focusing on her contributions to family, friends, and work.

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Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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