Hollywood is a ‘trap’, says Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz has opened up about her decision to step back from acting, calling Hollywood “such a trap”.

Speaking on Michelle Visage’s Rule Breakers podcast, Diaz, 49, described how she felt “maxed out” by the demands of Hollywood and decided to take a break to focus on spending time with her family.

Diaz said: “I feel for people like it’s such a trap.

“Again, I just go back to the trap of it all, especially in our society, like what we value, what we think is important… look if it’s important to you, that’s fine.”

She added: “No judgment, if that’s what really gets you up in the day, if that’s what you need, then that’s great.

“I personally for myself, looking at what came along with my position in Hollywood, I kind of maxed out.

“I feel like I did it all, but I haven’t done this thing, which is what I’m doing now.

“In a healthy relationship that is challenging in the right ways to help me grow, a partner I can go through the hardest times with and show who I am at the ugliest moments and still have this person love me and still build and grow together constantly.”

Diaz has been married to Benji Madden, lead guitarist of rock band Good Charlotte, since 2015.

The couple share one daughter, Raddix Madden, aged two.

While speaking to Visage, Diaz also revealed that she suffers from a lack of self-confidence like many other women.

She said: “I am absolutely a victim to all of the societal objectifications and exploitations that women are subjected to.

“I have bought into all of them myself at certain times.

“It’s hard not to, it’s hard not to look at yourself and judge yourself against other markers of beauty, and I think that that’s one of the biggest things, the last eight years, girl… I’m like wild, I’m like a wild animal, I’m a beast.”

Diaz and Visage discussed the Me Too movement and their own experiences of misogyny while working in the showbusiness industry.

“The early 1990s, there was still like heavy, heavy misogyny and the level of exploitation of powers was just laid on the entire industry.

“It was the normal thing to do to sort of like (mock laughs) and just be able to get through unscathed. Be the one who participated enough to make everybody feel taken care of, but not to be a victim.”

Visage, 53, added: “I agree completely and it was a different time. We are in a different time right now, thank God, especially for women.

“Thank God we live in a time now where we can say ‘that’s actually way out of line’, back then you couldn’t because you would lose a job and I’m not condoning it in any way, it’s just the way that it was.”

Michelle Visage’s Rule Breakers is available on BBC Sounds and Radio 2.