Busy Phillips Says She Has Considered Showing Up to Red Carpet Appearances Looking “A Mess” to Protest the High Cost Women Have to Pay for Glam

Many if not all women know the, for lack of a better term, upkeep costs of hair, makeup, wardrobe, nails—on, and on, and on. Well, most of us aren’t on the red carpet being photographed from every angle and scrutinized by every media outlet globally, so when you’re, for example, a famous actress, the glam costs skyrocket even more. It’s a cost that is limited, for the most part, to women, and Busy Philipps has had enough of it.

As awards season comes to a close with this past Sunday’s Academy Awards, the issue is very top of mind, and Phillips said, per Page Six, that she has considered looking “a mess” on the red carpet to protest the costs that actresses are expected to cover. 

Her so-called “red carpet rebellion” was inspired by Taraji P. Henson’s outrage over the economics of Hollywood, when she told Gayle King on King’s SiriusXM show “I hear people go, ‘You work a lot,’” Henson said. “Well, I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. When you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”

Phillips, while actually on the red carpet at the premiere of season three of Girls5Eva, said that she agrees with Henson: “I have to continually hustle,” Phillips said. “It is so true. With hair, makeup, and wardrobe and what it costs, Taraji P. Henson really spoke to that, and I felt it so deeply because I look at the money I am supposedly making and then it is not just the bills, but what is expected of me when I show up at a place.” 

She added, “The film company or this production company is only going to pay this percentage of your hair, makeup, and wardrobe, so then you have to make up the rest. So then you are a thousand dollars out of pocket and at the end of the day it’s like, ‘What am I doing?’ Sometimes I think I should just show up a mess at one of these things as a protest.”

She also said that social media has allowed her to bridge the gap between her paychecks as an actress and the mind-bending costs of being a celebrity. “I am so grateful that in the last 10 years I have been able to partner with so many brands, and I monetized my Instagram very early on, and that has kept me afloat in a way where a lot of my dear friends who are actresses have not been as fortunate,” she said.