Drew adopts the natural look (HAIRY ARMPITS IN HOLLYWOOD)

The Daily Mail ^ | February 10, 2005 | Clemmie Moodie

[MadIvan]

Posing hand on hip in a cutaway dress, Drew Barrymore has an announcement to make.

She has joined the growing number of celebrities who have stopped shaving under their arms - and don't care who knows it.

The 29-year- old Charlie's Angels star made her fashion statement at a New York catwalk event featuring designer Marc Jacobs.

With his penchant for dressing models in combat boots and army-style jackets, Jacobs is famed for his grunge-inspired look - and Drew certainly fitted in.

One of those attending the event at the Lexington Avenue Armory observed: 'She looked absolutely stunning but all people were talking about backstage were her hairy armpits.'

Born into one of Hollywood's great acting dynasties, the granddaughter of John Barrymore has never shunned publicity.

She appeared in her first advert at nine months and her first TV movie aged two. She hit the big time aged seven, as the cherubic Gertie in Steven Spielberg's ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.

By the age of nine she had become a heavy drinker and at 11 turned to drugs.

She entered rehab for the first time when she was 13 - and returned for a second spell within a year.

In 1994 she married Welsh bar owner Jeremy Thomas but it lasted just seven weeks while her second marriage, to Canadian comic Tom Green, ended in divorce three years

ago. She is rumoured this week to have dumped latest boyfriend Fabrizio Moretti, drummer with the rock group The Strokes.

By going for the natural look armpit-wise, she is in famous company. In April 1999 Julia Roberts revealed her secret as she waved to the crowd at the UK premiere of Notting Hill.

A year ago Elizabeth Jagger posed, arms aloft, in a series of portfolio photos sporting an extravagant curly perm with matching accessories.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter is also known to shun the razor, as are Emma Thompson and Miranda Richardson.

By contrast, the macho men of Chelsea Football Club have given the red card to upper body hair.

Several stars stripped off their shirts following last week's victory over Blackburn Rovers to reveal waxed chests gleaming under the floodlights.

The trend was started by England player Frank Lampard, who was photographed on holiday last year sporting a smooth top half - including hairless armpits.

[Dan from Michigan]

That really is something I do not want to see.

[cajungirl]

It all depends on the hair if you ask me. Huge patches of black hair as seen in those two photos are pretty yucky to me but not dirty, just unattractive. But many women barely have underarm hair.

This whole topic is suddenly disgusting me. Do we have to talk about this. I think I will go dwell on Prince Charles and his filly instead.

[television is just wrong]

LOL, Drew Carey doesn't shave his armpits either. (sarcasm)
And no I do not know from experience, but I do see him on a regular basis at the Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake, Ca

[Drammach]

By the age of nine she had become a heavy drinker and at 11 turned to drugs.
She entered rehab for the first time when she was 13 - and returned for a second spell within a year.

Stands to reason, she also lost her virginity somewhere around age 9 as well...
Mercifully for her, she was probably unconscious from drugs or alcohol, so she's not sure where or when it happened.. or how often..

She's a product of her environment..
Cut her some slack...
Regardless of the fame and fortune, the spoiled lifestyle, you can guess what it cost her..

Would any of you go through her hell for fame and fortune?
Would you put your child through it?
Would you turn out half as well as she did?
Many would have committed suicide by age 16..
Many have..

[Max in Utah]

Good post. Thank you.

[MiniCooperChick]

I don't get it.

I am not very hairy at all, naturally. Shaving my virtually hairless pits is not going to "expose" the skin, as it is already exposed. It's not like most of us are so hairy there's a rug growing in there!

Millions of men shave their faces daily and then apply "burning, stinging, dehydrating agents", does this contribute to an increase of throat cancer???

And then, cutting off the end of one's penis (can I say that here?) prevents disease, but merely brushing over the surface of the skin with a razor causes disease?

Your logic escapes me!

By the way, unlike the rest of the unshaven expatriates on this thread, I spent many years overseas due to my husband's job and lived in or visited many of the smelliest places on earth. Alot has to do with diet and hygiene, but I consider shaving an element of hygiene. Why should we expect people who don't even bathe to shave their pits and legs?

[wardaddy]

However, I had a girlfriend many years ago who didn't shave anything. I loved her, all the same. On the day that I care about stuff like body hair more than about the person, I'll hang up my humanity and depart this world.

That's a bit melodramatic MM.

[Max in Utah]

I find them abrasive.

LOL! Like having intimate contact with a chimney brush?

That once-per-month shaving don't get it! Grow 'em out or scrape 'em off-- no Yasser Arafat legs!

[olde north church]

Please don't take this as condescending, it's just easier reply in point by point form.
1. I could have probably used a better word than "expose".
The skin under the arm is extremely sensitive and shaving is both irritating and leaves microscopic cuts and nicks. It reduces the effectiveness of the skin as a barrier from foreign particles.
2. There isn't a cluster of lymph nodes directly under the skin where men shave. The lymph system is the secondary system, after the blood stream to carry fluids throughout the human body. When any cancer hits the lymph system, it's pretty much curtains.
3. I didn't say shaving causes diseases, I said it can be a factor. Much as if one walked through a sewer with an open sore.
4. Trans-dermal dermal delivery of a toxic biological or chemical agent is a very effective way to poison somebody. Quite a few deadly nerve agents can be transmitted that way.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Don't you love celebs who go "natural" by not shaving armpits, but who continue to pluck their eyebrows, remove nasal hair, and get bikini waxes? Not to mention continuing to use makeup and plastic surgery.

I wanna see Julia Roberts go unibrow!!

[MineralMan]

"That's a bit melodramatic MM."

Not really. I won't ever feel that way, so no worries.

[raybbr]

Good information on armpit hygiene, especially if you don't know already that hair traps sweat, which allows smelly bacteria to grow.

Are you suggesting that men shave their pits too? If not, why not?

[raybbr]

Alot has to do with diet and hygiene, but I consider shaving an element of hygiene.

American women are hygienic and American men aren't? By your logic.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Death related to hair removal!

http://www.local6.com/health/4179479/detail.html

[Rokke]

"That's a bit melodramatic MM."

LOL. Ya think?

[cajungirl]

Oh wardaddy, you know how melodramatic men can get as they age!! Leave the old guy in peace with memories of his hairy former girlfriend. I think it is touching myself.

[cajungirl]

I think we all have bacteria all over us all the time.

Think about it!

[1Old Pro]

By the age of nine she had become a heavy drinker and at 11 turned to drugs. She entered rehab for the first time when she was 13 - and returned for a second spell within a year. In 1994 she married Welsh bar owner Jeremy Thomas but it lasted just seven weeks while her second marriage, to Canadian comic Tom Green, ended in divorce three years ago. She is rumoured this week to have dumped latest boyfriend Fabrizio Moretti, drummer with the rock group The Strokes

Well, she sounds perfectly normal to me. I think I'll look up to her, her fashions, and her thoughts.

[KKing]

It is ironic and thank you for placing an emphasis on that.

We'll go on forever trying to define what norm is now. I am old enough to remember the impact Burt Reynolds had on Cosmo and now with men vainly plucking their eyebrows... nothing surprises me.

I'm not a hair freak, but even Beaker had a look about him.