Kate Keeps It Real

The actress refused to have her tummy retouched in her new hit series – but she’s flown the flag for body positivity for years

- Lindsay De Freitas

FILTERS, fillers, airbrushing, Botox, butt lifts – in this day and age there are many ways to keep the wrinkles at bay, shave off a few kilos, and make lumps and bumps magically disappear.

But come near Kate Winslet with any of these age-defying tools at your peril. The star, who turned 46 on 6 October, has no time for smoke and mirrors. In fact, there’s only one person she wants to see in any kind of mirror and that’s herself in all her imperfect glory.

Kate was the poster child for body positivity long before it became a thing. In 2003 she made headlines when she laid into GQ maga zine for trimming her down on the cover.

“The retouching is excessive,” she said. “I do not look like that and more importantly, I don’t desire to look like that.”

In 2015 she revealed she’d signed a contract with cosmetics giant L’Oréal which stated that her photos weren’t allowed to be retouched.

And she’s flying the warts-and-all banner high once again. Kate was praised for insisting her body wasn’t edited during a sex scene in her recent hit drama series, Mare of Easttown.

Director Craig Zobel offered to doctor a shot in which she shows “a bulgy bit of belly”.

“Don’t you dare,” she told him.

She even sent back a promotional poster for the series as it had been digitally altered too much. “I’m like, ‘Guys, I know how many lines I have by the side of my eye, please put them all back’.