Her stress is palpable.Photo: Getty Images
Elizabeth Hurley’s new line of bikinis for Mango is out, which, we suppose, explains why the London Times ran a really long profile of her. A good celebrity profile, like a good movie, contains the ups and downs of a person’s life that create an arc. At first — since even we can’t fake enthusiasm for her new bikini collection — we were inclined to agree with commenters who pointed out Hurley’s not really worth writing about because she’s just not arc material. One notes, “Liz Hurley is utterly … uninteresting.” But! We noticed Liz’s life is chock-full of hardships, which we’re happy to present in this easy-to-read list:
1. She doesn’t have time to wash her face after going to fancy parties, and sometimes her underwear shows.
Even this morning, straight off the redeye from New York and still wearing yesterday’s make-up (“Estée Lauder party, I’m afraid to say”), she manages to look like a hot head girl in a bomber jacket, a stripy top, sky-high Dolce & Gabbana snakeskin sandals and tight jeans that more than once fetchingly reveal a flash of lacy turquoise thong.
2. She has a hard time getting a proper skim cappuccino.
“Well, actually, I’m pretty scruffy today,” she says with a shrug, pushing back a lock of hair and ordering a nonfat cappuccino (“Make sure they get it right — you have to tell them about five times”).
3. She has so many white jeans it must be really hard to decide which ones to wear.
“I own tons of them” – she has, in the past, confessed to 30 white pairs alone — “I mean, tons. I’m happiest in jeans and a T-shirt, unless I’ve put on a bit of weight, then I’ll go to dresses immediately. I’m not really as stylish as I should be.”
4. She has so many bikinis it must be really hard to decide which ones to wear. Also, her accent must really annoy her deep down inside.
“I’ve got thousands,” she says. “Obviouslah. Although, whenever I go on holiday, I never seem to have any.”
5. She has to fit her Mango bikinis on poor, nearly nude models, which makes her really uncomfortable.
“I was so embarrassed: in walked the 6ft model in a nude thong, so poor Arun was like … whoosh, bloody hell! And then you have to fit the bikini, which means” — she stands up — “you’re probably on your knees and you’re pinning the crotch, fitting the crotch, saying, ‘Shall we do that? This? A bit more coverage on the bottom?’ I was so embarrassed, touching this girl.
6. She has to go to metaphorical hell more often than she’d like. Also see No. 4 re: her accent.
“Shooting bikinis is now my life, which, as you can imagine, is unmitigated hell,” she says, in her golly-gosh diction, which is peppered with words like “unpleasant-making” and “jolly”. “I can’t think of anything worse in the world than another bikini shoot – and I’ve got two next month. It’s unbearable, and I bring it all on myself. I’ve got nobody else to blame. It’s literallah torture. If you get a photographer you don’t know, of course, you think, ‘Oh God.’ But if you signed on for the gig, sadly, you have to go and be jolly in a skimpy white bikini.”
7. She’s over 40, so her body’s changed, but she still eats a lot.
“The biggest change at 40 is that you can’t stay vah slim with yoga, Pilates or stretching alone,” she says. “Previously, I didn’t do much more – if that. Over 40, you have to do something aerobic, unless you don’t eat much, but I eat lots.”
