Olivia Wilde was a guest on The Late Show with Seth Meyers Thursday night. I went into it not expecting much but she was funny, personable and she knows how to tell a good anecdote. Olivia of course stars on Vinyl, the new HBO show about the music scene in New York City in the 1970s. Being on an HBO show means that she has to do plenty of nudity, but she sounded ok with that. Wilde explained that she wears a merkin (pubic wig) on the show and that affords her some modesty. She also joked that excessive pubic hair is the only way you can sometimes tell the era of a show.
On how kids don’t have to stay up late to see nudity on HBO
That is the gift HBO provides to young people who can stay up late enough to see boobs. Remember Real Sex and you tried so hard to stay up because you were curious? Now Vinyl provides that at 9pm.On her merkin and the “merkin wall”
I was naked on the show last week but I got to wear a Merkin… a pubic wig. It makes you feel a little less naked. It is a thing on our show. We have the ‘merkin wall’ for all the women on our show. You design your own. It’s like build-a-bush. You pick the color, it’s great.Why the merkins are necessary
In the 70s people let it all grow out, which I think is now the only way you can tell you’re watching a show taking place in the past. We’ve co-opted fashion now… you see the pubic hair and you’re like ‘This happened a long time ago.’She was self conscious about the merkin too
I was so vocal about it being fake [on set] because I was horrified that background actors might think this was actually my real body hair. So I was walking around like ‘Woah, check this fake merkin out everyone.’On presenting at the Oscars with Ali G by surprise
I was so delighted but I had no idea. He showed up last minute and looked very nervous [and was covering his mouth]. The second the stage manager went away he sprung into action and pulled out the hat and the glasses and the glove and was like ‘Tuck my hair in!’ I am a huge Ali G fan and I was so thrilled that he was doing this. It was literally as Chris Rock was saying our names. I couldn’t contain my glee. He is such a champion because he’s never allowed back.
[From Late Night with Seth Meyers, video below]
I have news for her. The kids who are peeping the nudie shows on HBO have access to a lot more titillating material than we ever did when we waited for shows to air, and if their parents block that they’re watching everything on demand anyway. No one waits for shows to air anymore, but I could so relate to doing that. DVRs came out when she was in high school so she technically may not have had to stay up. There’s also the sneakiness factor though/
The first time I heard about merkins was when Evan Rachel Wood explained how Kate Winslet convinced her to use one for Mildred Pierce. That was such a great miniseries. It’s available on HBOGo if you’re interested, as is every episode of Real Sex ever made. We live in incredible times.
Here’s Wilde’s interview:
photos credit: WENN.com
This actually pisses me off. She’s so absolute in her conviction that nobody at all in the 21st century would let their public hair be. That is was a “style” thing in the 70s. No, it has been a “normal, natural” thing since the dawn of humanity.
It is a creepy “style” thing now-a-days when people are repulsed by the body in its adult state.
Just because she wants to contribute to some kind of pubescent fantasy, doesn’t mean everyone does. Grrr.
This.
🙂
word
Dido! It’s 2016 A.D and I’m as hairy as a cave woman.
Pissed? LOl, woooowwww. I don’t think it’s wrong that a lot fewer people in western culture have hairy bushes these days. They’re itchy.
What’s itchy is growing in hair that has been all waxed off. Leaving yourself be isn’t itchy at all!!!
You need to wash that puppy once in a while if it’s itching. Good, clean pubs shouldn’t itch. And fyi, I once had a landing strip so I could wear a bathing suit, but now I’m au natural and would never go back to shaving.
Lasering is EVERYTHING
Thank you! I’ve never waxed. I never had guy ask me to wax. When I had my c-section the nurse shaved 80% off and it was the worse growing it back. I’m firmly in the DGAF camp about pubes. You do you and I’ll do me Olivia. But I’ll be sure and teach my daughter she has choices and to not be intimidated or pressured into waxing.
You’re right. I would say that MOST women in the world still do not wax or shave their pubic hair. This is something that is afforded to Western women or women influenced by Western ideals of what a woman’s body should look like to be considered attractive. Most women in Asia do not wax and I imagine that is also the case for women living in Africa and the Middle East. In fact, many societies still value pubic hair and associate it with youth and fertility. Western shaving and waxing companies are trying to change that and make inroads in potentially very lucrative markets such as China by convincing women that something is wrong with them for having pubic hair.
Waxing it all or most of it off is very common in my non-Western culture, and has been since pretty much forever. The ‘brazilian’ isn’t a remotely new thing, nor something started by Westerners.
I keep it real, like the decade of my birth. No mirkins needed here.
She’s not very smart.
Amen for your comment, Tris, heaven forbid women have hair anywhere but head, eyelashes and brows.
Thank you Tris. She effectively shamed those of us that aren’t obsessively plucking away any trace of body hair not deemed acceptable by the male gaze. Screw that.
I’m not sure why people get so up in arms about keeping public hair. Yeah it may be natural, but so is not dying your hair or wearing any makeup. Everyone is free to keep your pubes if you want, but let’s be honest in this day and age it is a style thing, because we’re not cavemen anymore and we don’t need them to keep warm.
Maybe it’s just me, but it’s exhausting to be expected to wax away every stray hair you have on your body, as a woman. It takes such constant vigilance and upkeep! And then men can be hairy beasts and no one cares. Ahhhhhhhhhh.
Your pubic hair isn’t designed to keep you warm … no one can quite agree on what its specific purpose is, but saying it’s supposed to keep you warm is plain wrong. Is armpit hair meant to keep your armpits warm and toasty? No.
More likely it’s designed to protect your genitals by trapping bacteria and dirt, and it also traps pheromone-filled sweat the facilitate sexual attraction, often subliminally.
It reduces friction/chafing, as does armpit hair.
Pubic hair protects the body from STDs, while removing it increases your chance of transmission. I just read an article about that this week. HPV and I think gonorrhea are on the rise because of the popularity of waxing these days.
I was a teenager in the 70’s. There was no such thing as pubic hair styling, grooming, etc. We would shave around the area where the thigh/bikini area meet, for obvious reasons. In my twenties, some guys would ask if I would shave down there just out of curiosity. I did shave one time for my then boyfriend. NEVER AGAIN!!!!! Talk about itch….. now that I’m old(er), my pubic hair has disappeared on it’s own, and that’s fine for me!!!! Armpits too! YAY
Dear Olivia,
It’s okay to have pubic hair. It’s fine if you choose to wax it off, and it’s also fine if you choose to let it all stay. I know you are an actress and live in NY/LA and probably haven’t seen a full bush in a couple of decades, and that’s colored your judgement on the subject.
“Right on! Yeah!” – Gwyneth “Pubes” Paltrow
I am delighted that Olivia Wilde would be horrified by the state of my body hair; not that she would ever be fortunate enough to see it. Seriously, we judge people by how they groom pubic hair now?
And really, Olivia, calling the background actors to check out your merkin? Attention-starved much?
That’s so weird. You’re otherwise completely naked, ass and tits out, and the thing you’re ashamed of or, at least, embarrassed by is the pubic hair? Is this what body positivity is supposed to be?
I don’t understand anything anymore.
–TheRealPinky
I’m just hubble bubbling about too much info but sod it – chemo took this decision from me on a virtually permanent basis. Not that I’d have ever kept up with that sort of grooming routine even if it hadn’t. I have enough trouble bothering with grooming the bits of me that the general public can see! Washing seems sufficient. My pubic hair existing never seemed significant enough to warrant any actual action on my part.
On the other hand, I love this show Vinyl. It’s so EXTRA. Not sure if it’s the worst or the best thing I’ve ever seen but I can’t stop watching it!
I am terrible about shaving/waxing regularly, because I simply don’t care enough. People have hair, it’s okay.
Let’s face it, Olivia wants attention and she figured she would get it by talking about her crotch on television.
THIS ^^
Not every female in LA has a shaved beav, and not every guy prefers that. In fact, many still prefer bush, especially if they grew up sexually/during pubescence with that as the norm.
Wilde has never seemed especially bright, and this is another of her “marathon runner sex” type of statements that she thinks will have mileage and continue her image as a sex symbol. That’s fine, but she seems so vacuous otherwise, and her insinuating — no, outright stating — that pubic hair on women is “shameful” tells all anyone needs to know about her intellect.
GAWD I am so glad that I came of age in the 70s. Under NO circumstances would I let someone pull my pubic hair out by the ROOTS!
There are plenty of people around the world who would NEVER think of waxing that area.
I think she’s cute and comes off as approachable and funny. People who are becoming social justice warriors over their pubes need to slow down, it’s not that big of a deal.
^^^ This 😊
Thank you! Some people will make it all about them and their bush and preach. It’s a post about pubes take a break. It’s not that serious.
Thank you. That was my feeling. I was smiling and even giggled at her words in the article. She’s funny. And then…as per usual…the entire comment section is angry people projecting all kinds of opinions and bad character traits on a person who was just making a joke about pubic hair on set.
My favorite was someone saying she’s unintelligent because she made a joke about pubic hair that doesn’t flatter that particular commenter’s personal preference for her own…I mean…seriously?
People really have to lighten up. We don’t have to plant our swords on every playground and declare it a battlefield.
Joking is fine and I don’t think her comments are that serious – but I also don’t find it surprising when statements that do contain an undertone of something being wrong or weird about a woman’s natural body strike a nerve. Imagine if she wore padding to portray an overweight woman and then joked about it on a talk show, being “horrified” that background actors would think she was really that size.
I realize that pubic hair on women might not be 100% the norm, but I also don’t think it’s the bizarre oddity that she is making it out to be.
On another note, I have tried week after week to give Vinyl a chance and after last week, I have officially made the decision to just give up. I find it to be completely awful, and based on what I’ve read online, I’m not the only one.
Ditto. I love Bobby Canavale and Ray Romano – and music (though punk is about all I can stand from the 70s), but I was gone after episode 1. The show is a real disappointment.
A good friend is a nurse in a sexual health clinic. She told me a while back that younger patients regularly apogise for having pubic hair! How sad to see body hair as something so offensive you feel the need to say sorry, I haven’t waxed/shaved recently.
I actually thought it was a generational thing, with many women over 45 “au naturel” and most younger women either bald or sporting a very narrow “landing strip” in the middle. At least those last 2 were what my 30 year old daughter explained when I asked her what’s the norm today. I was repulsed by the idea of going completely hairless, because it does indeed seem creepily childish to me; I’m a woman, not a preadolescent. Frankly, I thought men or women might prefer hairless to avoid getting lots of little hairs in their mouth, (though my daughter didn’t suggest that!), so I stopped being so very disapproving. Whatever! I go to a low cost NJ beach with lots of international immigrants, and it’s fun to see how older European, Slavic or Hispanic women think nothing of wearing a bikini even if they are quite hefty, and hair grooming runs a wide gamut. There just seems to be a lot of self acceptance and joie de vivre!
I have a 21 year old daughter and lots of nieces. Some remove all their hair. My daughter is more of an artist/hippie type and thinks removing all your hair is gross and weird. So even in younger women, it runs the gamut. Hippie/boho women ain’t shaving or waxing it all of!!!
My hubby is a doctor and he said when he was doing his OB/gyn rotation that pubic hair was totally a generational thing. All the women who were younger had very groomed/waxed pubic hair, while older women had more natural hair. I think it’s the influence of porn on our current society
I used to do a lot of gyn care as a Nurse Practitioner, and the absence or presence of pubic hair is definitely a generational thing.
What? She looked so pissed at Sacha Baron Cohen being Ali G. Even if that’s not the case, it clearly isn’t true that “she couldn’t contain her glee.” More likely she heard how the Internet was laughing at her angry face reaction to him and decided on a little revisionist history. Which is unnecessary, it’s okay if she was annoyed or thrown off.
Sacha Baron Cohen himself said that Olivia was really supportive about the whole Ali G thing.
I’m on the fence about Olivia (in general not just this topic :))
Clearly she doesn’t realize how the outside world beyond Hollywood maintenances or doesn’t maintenance their pubic hair.
That said I just got my first Brazilian and it was painful (then it was like whatever) but I love the results for my myself. (happily single and childfree).
What on earth does being single and not being a parent have to do with how you groom your genitals?
I’m a happily married mom…and I wax some seasons and leave it natural in others. My marital status and motherhood never enter into my current mood about the bush.
Women should do whatever they want with their body hair, but having pubes is not “horrifying,” Olivia.
I find her comments a bit odd. She had that whole breastfeeding is natural should be done anywhere-anytime thing but on the other hand she is ashamed of her mature natural womanly body?
On a side note, a have been doing laser for my bikini strips- and it’s well worth the money!
I have been going for the past 3 years every 3-4 months, and now there is no growth.
Maybe the trend nowadays to remove everything is just because it’s technically easier and less painful?
Well to each her own I guess…
With the exception of Jaime Oliver’s show, I have not watched any show in real time in THREE years…the freedom is awesome.
I love the Mildred Pierce miniseries. It is sooo good. And ERW was deliciously hideous as Veda in it, I could watch it over and over again.
As for the bush debate, all types work for me. I’m over 40 now and I have had many different styles of downstairs grooming. Olivia Wilde cracks me up though – I think she is beautiful and hilarious.
I am not going down on a woman that doesn’t at least shave around the lip area. Yuck. Personally, I feel much cleaner when it is trimmed and shaved. I usually don’t go totally bald anymore, but there is plenty of maintenance going on.