On Silas House's radio show, Ashley Judd discusses her response to media treatment of her 'puffy face'

Photo by Richard Drew

When the media sent discussions of Ashley Judd's "puffy face" into a viral tailwind earlier this year, the actress responded with an opinion piece defending herself and chastising the media for over-sexualization of women and girls. That piece was quickly swept up into the viral frenzy and received much media attention in its own right. 

The self-proclaimed feminist, activist, humanitarian and Eastern Kentucky native spoke about the episode with Appalachian Kentucky author Silas House on his "Hillbilly Solid" radio show, which aired on WUKY-FM in Lexington last night. She said the piece was a "deeply personal" and private writing she never meant to publicly share. She had "abstained" from media coverage about herself for 10 years, but after her husband, Indy-car driver Dario Fanchitti, encouraged her to read the coverage and demand an apology from the media, she read it, and started writing. 

"I spent a lot of time under a redbud tree, as one should, and wrote it in 20 to 30 minutes," Judd said. She sent the piece to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, who declined to print it. The Daily Beast picked up the piece and soon it was making the rounds on social networking websites. 

"A lot of people were astonished by the essay because they didn't expect those ideas to come from me," Judd said, adding that she's thought those ideas since her undergraduate career at the University of Kentucky. She said she can't help but notice the "very gendered nature" in which products and movies are advertised and that the over-sexualization and objectification of girls and women "absolutely appalls and disgusts" her. 

The response to the essay was overwhelmingly positive. "I've never been a part of anything like it," Judd said. She insisted the treatment she received from the media is not just something public figures go through, but is something all girls and women experience. "The patriarchy is a system in which we all participate, either willingly or unwillingly," she said, adding that everyone should make themselves more aware of how women and girls are treated in our human society.