You’d be hard pressed to think of another beauty with as many famous individual features as British Vogue’s February 2024 cover star, Julia Roberts.

The pre-Raphaelite auburn curls. Those full, feathery brows. That indelible smile so broad and straight and gleaming, it’s surely a blueprint for orthodontists. But Roberts is also, lest we forget, something of a poster girl for underarm hair.

Mark Cuthbert/Getty Images
Although Roberts wasn’t the first star to unveil au naturel armpits in public (credit here goes to Sophia Loren, who was flouting that particular beauty norm as far back as the 1950s), she is arguably the most memorable, not least for the amount of discussion–even outrage–that her hirsute appearance at the 1999 London premiere of Notting Hill prompted.

“I waved and people saw I had armpit hair. It was a scandal,” she recalls wryly in the Life in Looks film that accompanies her British Vogue cover.

Julia at the premiere of Notting Hill 25 years ago, when she unwittingly caused a sensation by revealing her unshaven armpits.  Mark Cuthbert/Getty Images

As Roberts has pointed out, despite the attention (not to mention the column inches) that her armpits attracted, she had no pro-hair agenda at play; she was simply being herself.

But this red carpet moment was pivotal nonetheless, and can be seen as paving the way towards the far more relaxed attitudes to body hair we have today. Few would bat an eyelid over a Gen-Z woman ditching the razor in 2024, but back in 1999, Roberts was something of a pioneer–even if she didn’t set out to be one.

Happily, Roberts is still being herself 25 years later. As she quips in the video: “I could scandalize you people right now if I took my jacket off.”