Cameron Diaz has opened up about the pressures of ageing, saying that women are expected to "defy nature".
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey ahead of her new show Cameron Diaz & Sharon Stone: Aging Gracefully, 41-year-old Cameron said women feel like failures if they are unable maintain their youthful looks as they grow older. "Our culture is obsessed with not growing into who you were meant to be," said Oprah, to which Cameron responded, "It's true, it's crazy."
"And women don't allow other women to age gracefully," added The Mask actress. "We don't give ourselves permission to age gracefully" Oprah, 60, also commented that women are fixated with maintaining their more youthful looks, resisting what comes naturally and "trying to be back there. "Exactly," agreed Cameron. "And I feel like, for me, it's like we have failed if we don't remain 25 for the rest of our lives. Like we are failures, it's a personal failure.
"It's like it's our fault, if, at 40-years-old that I don't still look like I'm 25." Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Reese Witherspoon enjoy girly getaway in Napa Valley
Cameron then mocked the unrealistic expectations women face by sarcastically saying "Oh I'm sorry, I apologise that I wasn't able to defy nature."
In recent years Cameron has been vocal in defying the pressures women face in regards to their bodies. Cameron Diaz celebrates turning 40 In January the Hollywood star released The Body Book, a health and fitness guide in which she shares her personal experience of learning to love and take care of the body you have.
Cameron, who never previously saw herself as an author, said she suddenly felt compelled to write the book to help those feeling daunted by the pressures of conforming to popular bodily expectations.
"Two years ago I had this absolute moment when it came to me that I had to do this book because nobody else was going to do it," she said Cameron. "I had to find a way to share the knowledge that I have about my body at 41 – and wish I’d had at 21."
'Sorry I was so late to the party': Cameron Diaz joins Twitter Speaking of the problems she faced during her teenage years, Cameron describes how she was plagued by acne which she says was so bad that she spent her time "trying to hide from my friends, from the cameras, from everyone.""I think that for a young person, having bad skin is a real issue because your face is the first thing people look at when they meet you," she added. "So I wrote the book for my 16-year-old self, who I look back on and think, “Why didn’t I know these things then?"