Celebrity

Why Are So Many Celebrities Suddenly Admitting They Don’t Shower?! A Stinky Investigation

From Mila Kunis to Kristen Bell to Jake Gyllenhaal, why are so many celebs proudly admitting they stink?

by Michelle Rennex  13 August 2021
Celebrity celebrities Shower Bathe Dirty

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

If you’ve been online in the last week, you would’ve likely been bombarded with a stinky fact you probably really didn’t want to ever know: A bunch of celebrities actually don’t bathe regularly.

Over the last few weeks, there’s been a real shower debate happening in the celebrity world. After a few celebs openly admitted that they don’t regularly shower, others have felt the need to publicly take a firm pro-bathing stance.

So, let’s investigate why so many celebrities are suddenly admitting they don’t shower:

Who Stinks?

This whole shower debate started earlier this week when Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher hopped onto Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert.

While on the podcast, Shepard asked about the couple’s bathing habits to settle a “how often should you wash” debate he had with his co-host, Monica Padman.

Basically, Shepard believed that only one’s “soles and holes” should be washed daily as a full body wash allegedly strips the skin of its natural oils. Sadly, this is something both Kunis and Kutcher agreed with.

“I don’t wash my body with soap every day,” Kunis shared, before adding that she does the same for her children. “I didn’t have hot water growing up as a child so I didn’t shower very much. But when I had children I also didn’t wash them every day. I wasn’t the parent who bathed my newborns ever.”

“I wash my armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever,” Kutcher added about his personal hygiene before sharing his mantra for cleaning his children. “Here’s the thing: If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point.”

Once the news of Kunis and Kutcher’s questionable showering habits started to circulate online, a number of other celebrities decided to weigh in.

Kristen Bell, Shepard’s wife, admitted that she also doesn’t bathe the couple’s children until they smell “the stink”.

“I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink,” Bell said on The View. “Once you catch a whiff, that’s biology’s way of letting you know you need to clean it up.”

“We did bathe them religiously for the first few years when the bedtime routine was so vital,” Shepard further clarified in an interview with Daily Blast Live. “But once that wasn’t required to get them to go to sleep, yeah, we took our foot off the gas.”

In regards to their personal showering habits, Shepard explained that he only showers “when either a smell is present or if [he is in] the accouterments of acting” like makeup and hair product. Bell took a more environmentally friendly stance and tried to blame her lack of shower on droughts.

“This is the thing: California has been in a drought forever, it’s responsibility for the environment. We don’t have a tonne of water. So when I shower, I’ll grab the girls and push them in there with me so we all have the same shower water and I don’t know.”

“It just happens whenever it happens, I guess.”

For some reason, Jake Gyllenhaal then decided to add to the stinky conversation by sharing that he thinks daily showers are “less necessary” because “we naturally clean ourselves”.

“More and more I find bathing to be less necessary, at times,” Gyllenhaal said during an interview with Vanity Fair. “I do also think that there’s a whole world of not bathing that is also really helpful for skin maintenance, and we naturally clean ourselves.”

“I do believe, because Elvis Costello is wonderful, that good manners and bad breath get you nowhere. So I do [brush my teeth],” the actor clarified because he didn’t want anyone thinking his oral hygiene was as bad as his bathing habits.

Similarly, Ice T’s wife Coco Austin revealed that she also doesn’t shower every day, but rather only when she “feels icky”.

“I do what’s needed. When I’m feeling icky, I’ll get in the shower,” she said during an E! News interview. “Whether that’s every day, that may be, but that could be every three days.”

“I kinda keep myself clean, though. Like, if I feel like my pits smell or something, I just take some washcloths and some soap to it. I might not have to clean my whole body.”

Who Showers?

With all the conversations about bathing habits taking over the internet, some celebs have found it necessary to set the record straight.

Chris Evans, for example, simply stated “I shower all the time. I’m a very clean person” when he was asked about showers during an interview with TODAY. 

Similarly, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson decided to address the topic head-on by sharing that he is actually “the opposite of a ‘not washing themselves’ celeb” — usually bathing three times a day, in fact.

Also confirming he’s a clean boy, Jason Momoa had to defend his cleaning habits after his co-star claimed he didn’t shower during an interview for his upcoming flick, Sweet Girl. 

“He was saying shit like ‘I don’t shower’ and I am not touching those scrunchies,” his co-star Isabel Merced jokingly said while explaining why she didn’t steal any of Momoa’s infamous hair ties as a souvenir from their time together.

“I’m not starting any trends, I shower. Trust me, I shower. I’m Aquaman, I’m in the fucking water, don’t worry about it,” Momoa clarified. “I’m Hawaiian, we got salt water, I’m good.”

But the one celebrity who has taken a firm stance against celebrities who refuse to shower is Cardi B, who says the current conversation around not bathing is “giving itchy”.

To confirm that she showers regularly, the rapper even uploaded a photo with multiple soaps, body washes, scrubs, deodorants, and lotions. Along with the photo, Cardi B asked fans: “Would you shower at my place?”

But Why The Hell Do We Suddenly Know All Of This?

It’s clear that the sudden focus on celebrity showering habits has stemmed from Dax Shepard and his podcast.

However, the reason so many celebrities have started sharing their bathing schedules really boils down to the “relatability trap” that most celebrities fall into in an attempt to make themselves seem just like the Average Joe.

It’s the same thing that happened with Jennifer Lawrence when she tried to make “loving pizza” her entire brand. Lawrence wasn’t like other actors because she ate carbs and not just salads. How relatable!

The issue when it comes to showering, however? Most Average Joe’s actually do bathe regularly.

The reality is even when celebrities don’t need to offer information to the public, they always do. Take Matt Damon admitting that he only just recently stopped using the f-slur when no one actually asked for that information at all.

Celebrities have long shared their hygiene habits — or rather, the lack of them — during interviews. In 2009, Julia Roberts told Oprah she doesn’t use deodorant because it’s just never been her “thing”. Meanwhile on Ellen in 2019, when the whole “do you wash your legs in the shower” saga reached its peak, Taylor Swift admitted that she doesn’t wash hers because “shaving cream is like soap”.

So sadly, I don’t think this sudden surge of celebrities admitting they don’t shower isn’t going to ever end. We’re doomed to stay in this stinky cycle forever.

Michelle Rennex is a senior writer at Junkee. She tweets at @michellerennex.