The latest episode of the podcast features Reese Witherspoon talking about postnatal depression and her experience of sexism in the entertainment industry. (“Is there anything sadder than a 34-year-old trying to start a YouTube channel?” she laughs.) Both come under her I Weigh movement, a campaign that started on Instagram in 2018 to promote the idea that people, especially women, should be “weighed” by their achievements rather than the number on their bathroom scales – and to promote inclusivity, social justice and mental health. She has a new podcast, which started at the beginning of the month, and she will soon launch a YouTube show. need to shut up and open their purses.” (Jamil is donating to refugee and domestic violence charities.) “I think that’s gone overnight because we don’t have the luxury any more. The way that we have looked up to money, fame and materialism …” She pauses. “Who is going to have the money for cellulite cream, fillers or detox teas? No one’s going to want to see your $300 bikini any more. And I think celebrities are consistently making arses of themselves.” I would be happy never to see a certain kind of influencer again, I say. Celebrities have been hero-worshipped, and now it has become very obvious who the true heroes are. Mostly she hopes that “our value systems are going to shift. But I think some women are becoming used to seeing their faces without makeup, and realising that you don’t need all of the nonsense that we have flogged at us.” And that’s great – we are the lucky ones.” Might it mark the end of the ridiculous grooming ideals (the lip fillers, the weirdly immaculate eyebrows)? “For women who have transitioned, I think not having access to aestheticians is really difficult. She is excited, too, about the possible return of women’s body hair, saying that “we’re coming out of this furrier, chubbier, spottier and hopefully alive.
Photograph: NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Jameela Jamil with Ted Danson in The Good Place. She has always succumbed to polite convention when someone puts their hand out. “The fact you know that a hand has been on a dick at some point before touching your hand is deeply unsettling,” she says with a laugh, going on to describe it as “a sort of penile imprint upon your palm”. “On a more frivolous note, I’m really happy that handshaking is kind of cancelled for ever.” It has always appalled her, she says, and her explanation is something I have never considered before and will never be able to forget. I can afford to not work for a while and I have my health,” she says. “I couldn’t feel more privileged right now.
The lockdown has not been too difficult, she says. We talk on the phone, with Jamil calling from her home in Los Angeles, which she shares with her boyfriend, the musician James Blake and three friends. I’m just learning, I’m not the authority on anything.” She has not, she says, “handled myself perfectly at all times, but I am a human, prone to error”. “You get hurled up on to a pedestal and it always feels a bit like a trap – it’s very high, it’s easy to slip off and it’s a long way down.
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She ended the month embroiled in a Twitter row with Piers Morgan (public feuds being something of a natural stomping ground for both) after the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack.ĭoes Jamil ever feel like living a quieter life? “It’s not an easy path,” she says. Then she had to defend herself against accusations she had Munchausen’s syndrome – a psychiatric disorder in which people feign illness – an allegation started by a writer who didn’t believe her history of health problems.
First, she came out as queer, which appeared to infuriate many people. Yet barely a month goes by without Jamil popping up to ignite some controversy or inflame the kind of commentator incensed by any hint of perceived “wokeness”.įebruary was a particularly difficult month. First came the break that led to a job presenting Channel 4’s Saturday morning hangover slot, T4, which was followed by a job on Radio 1, before a swift, and unexpected, move to become an actor on the hit US sitcom The Good Place. W ere she another kind of person, Jameela Jamil would have an easy life.