{"id":318,"date":"2025-09-03T16:38:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/upworthy\/2025\/09\/03\/julia-roberts-responds-to-bodyshaming-on-instagram-ex1\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T16:38:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:38:00","slug":"julia-roberts-responds-to-bodyshaming-on-instagram-ex1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/09\/03\/julia-roberts-responds-to-bodyshaming-on-instagram-ex1\/","title":{"rendered":"‘God, what if I was 15?’: Julia Roberts responds to being shamed in photo with niece Emma Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actress Julia Roberts<\/a> was late to the game when it came to joining social media, so she was blown away when she finally saw first-hand how toxic it could be. She started an Instagram account <\/a>in June of 2018 and, shortly after, was the target of trolls mocking her appearance in a post by her niece.
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Roberts was upset about<\/a> the negative comments people made about her looks and then was gutted when she considered social media’s effect on young women. In a 2018 interview with Oprah Winfrey for Harper\u2019s Bazaar<\/em>,<\/a> Julia recounted the story:<\/p>

\u201cAlthough something did happen recently on my niece Emma\u2019s Instagram that I think taught me a lot about what it\u2019s like being a young person in today\u2019s society. One weekend morning Emma slept over, and we got up and were having tea and playing cards and having this beautiful morning, and then a couple of days later, she posted a picture of us<\/a>,\u201d Roberts recalled.<\/p>

\u201cAnd the number of people who felt absolutely required to talk about how terrible I looked in the picture\u2014that I\u2019m not aging well, that I look like a man, why would she even post a picture like this when I look that terrible!\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd I was amazed at how that made me feel. I\u2019m a 50-year-old woman and I know who I am, and still my feelings got hurt. I was sad that people couldn\u2019t see the point of it, the sweetness of it, the absolute shining joy of that photo. I thought, \u2018What if I was 15?\u2019\u201d<\/p>


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A young woman looks uncomfortable in the mirror. Image via Canva.<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>

Beauty influencer Samantha Marika<\/a> combined the audio of Julia telling the story, added it to the candid photo of her and Emma, and posted it to Instagram, and it went viral. The post has since been deleted, but in February 2024, actress and author Ali Wentworth<\/a> posted a similar video of the photo of Roberts with her niece along with other photos from throughout the actress’ life. Her words to Oprah play over the video and Wentworth applauds Roberts for being “spot on about the corrosive nature of social media and its effect on younger generations” in the caption. <\/p>\n

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