Busy Philipps is opening up about the high cost of beauty in the entertainment industry.
At the season three premiere of Girls5Eva in New York City on March 7, 44-year-old Philipps told Page Six about the large amounts of money that she and other actresses are expected to spend on their red carpet glam.
“I have to continually hustle,” told the publication. “It is so true. With hair, makeup and wardrobe and what it cost, […] 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.”
“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,” she continued. “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.”
Philipps added that she has been fortunate to work with brands and social media platforms to help fund the extra costs.
“I am so grateful that in the last ten 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.
Philipps is far from the only celebrity in Hollywood who feels frustrated by this. She was echoing the sentiments expressed by Taraji P. Henson in December 2023 on an episode of Gayle King’s Sirius XM show.
“I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ Well, I have to,” Henson, 53, said at the time. “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.”
