Renee Zellweger has responded to the freak out about her face

On Monday, Renee Zellweger showed up at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards wearing a dress and makeup, as actresses who show up to such events are wont to do.

By Tuesday morning, the freak out over her allegedly much-altered appearance was well on its way to peak freak out.

So by that night, Zellweger found it necessary to issue a response, and did so in the form of a statement to People:

“Perhaps I look different. Who doesn’t as they get older?! Ha. But I am different. I’m happy,” she told the magazine.

She called the freak out “silly.” She said she’s glad “folks” think she looks different. She said her friends think she looks “peaceful.”

“I’m living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I’m thrilled that perhaps it shows,” she told People. “... For a long time I wasn’t doing such a good job with that. I took on a schedule that is not realistically sustainable and didn’t allow for taking care of myself. Rather than stopping to recalibrate, I kept running until I was depleted and made bad choices about how to conceal the exhaustion. I was aware of the chaos and finally chose different things.”

For the scads of commenters who noted the different things in Zellweger’s appearance on Monday, her message seems clear: Nothing to freak out about here.

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