'That’s painful': Renée Zellweger on plastic surgery rumours

Hollywood star Renée Zellweger, 50, has opened up about the struggles of living - and aging - in the public eye throughout her 25-year career.

On the promotion trail for her latest film, the Judy Garland biopic Judy, the Oscar-winning actor revealed a particularly “painful” experience where she overhead people criticising her appearance - and even suggesting she’s gone under the knife.

‘She doesn’t look like herself’

In a candid interview on US radio station SiriusXM, Renée recalled overhearing two women and a man openly discussing her looks while riding the tube in London.

“They were talking about...how Hollywood ladies are so silly, and ‘especially that Renée Zellweger,’” the Bridget Jones icon said.

According to Renée, the opinionated trio went on to allege she had plastic surgery.

“How could she do that? Why would she go and have surgery on her face like we wouldn’t know? She doesn’t look like herself, and you can’t just do that where you go and don’t look like yourself, ‘cause we expect you to look like yourself,” Renée quoted them as saying.

Renée hits back at rumours

Renée admitted she was taken aback by the comments but the situation became even more awkward when the one member of the group, the man, looked up and recognized her.

“He said, ‘Oh God, you’re not, you are! But you look just like yourself!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s funny how that works, isn’t it?’” the Texan beauty recalled.

Despite the initial sting, the triple-Golden Globe winner was able to brush off criticism of her looks.

“It’s only momentarily where you go, ‘Jeez, wow, that’s pretty painful.’ But I don’t live in that,” she explained.

“It just visits my life here and I’m not really privy on that stuff until someone sends it to me. I don’t seek it out. And I’m busy! ... I have other things to do,” she added.

In 2016, Renée revealed the reason she took a six-year hiatus from acting after her 2010 film, My Own Love Song, flopped.

“I was fatigued and wasn't taking the time I needed to recover between projects, and it caught up with me... I got sick of the sound of my own voice,” she told British Vogue.

Renée went on to make a triumphant comeback with the third instalment in the ‘Bridget Jones’ franchise, Bridget Jones’s Baby, which received warm reviews and raked in over $211 million worldwide.

Judy hits Aussie theatres on October 10, 2019.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Di Filippo.

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