Who is Women in Red Dress in Kyleena Ad
Her mom told her not to do it. But back then, Lucy Hale was only 15, and the world was smack in the middle of Britney mania, of spray-tanned midriffs and whale-tailing thongs, of low-rise denim's prime time. Who among us did not at least consider getting their belly button pierced?
Lucy did more than consider. "I had the long, dangly, trashy…" she gestures in what I believe is the universal sign language for "mall kiosk's finest, circa 2004." Pulling up the bottom of her ribbed white tank top, she reveals the hole beneath her navel that has never closed. "It took me so long to convince my mom," she remembers. "And then I didn't have the nerve to tell her that after a month, I hated it."
One might think this cautionary tale would end with "...and I never pierced anything again." But we're currently standing in a back room at Maria Tash, the bougie piercing boutique in New York City's SoHo neighborhood, because Lucy, who just turned 30, is here for piercing number 10. And maybe 11, "if I'm feeling really insane."
She hops up on the table, swinging her bright-white high-top Converse back and forth like a kid in a big-girl chair as one of the salon's artists uses a Sharpie to prep her triangular fossa (that's science for "upper ear").
Within seconds, a cluster of diamonds is sparkling from the right side of Lucy's head. The pain, she swears, was nothing. Nothing! She is delighted. And this is the moment in which everything I thought I knew about Lucy turns out to be full-stop wrong.
The actress, ostensibly one of the rare goody-two-shoes stars floating above the detritus and decadence of Hollywood, is actually a charismatic, con-woman-level partner in crime. I had started my day responsibly prepared for an interview with a famous person and will somehow end it with two new piercings of my own. Or as Lucy puts it, watching me grin through the not not-painful process, with "treating myself."
For the sake of both our moms, it's a good thing we're meeting at a piercing place and not, say, a tattoo parlor. Because who knows what interesting life decisions would have been made there. Lucy is between sessions for the long, painful process of having six tattoos removed, including an elephant ("I got it done out of the country and it was not done well"), a light bulb ("just over it"), and a Bible verse on her rib cage ("I'm not religious by any means at all anymore," plus the "thick font" doesn't vibe with the single-needle aesthetic she has on the rest of her body). Some of her surviving ink, for now: her grandmother's handwriting on her arm, an evil eye, and a quote from the Insta poet Atticus: "Love her but leave her wild."
Need a minute to check this magazine's cover and make sure this is still a profile of Lucy Hale? I get it. She gets it too. She's fully aware of her scandal-free image. She knows she's got that Forever 21 vibe about her and people will think of her as a teenager until she's in her 40s. (See also: Alexis Bledel is eternally Rory Gilmore; Sarah Michelle Gellar will always be Buffy; Rachel Bilson is still our Summer.)
In other words, you're right, she does *seem* tame. Except that this Lucy Hale is now deliberately lasering off an innocent lil elephant—and keeping the "wild." At first, I blame New York for turning a darling angel person onto her wilder side. The city does have a legendary rap for crushing souls, and Lucy is living here for the first time, taking a several-month break from Los Angeles, where she's lived since her gold-belly-chain years.
She's in town to shoot The CW's Katy Keene, the latest shiny spin-off inspired by the Archie comics. An aspiring fashion designer in her 20s, protagonist Katy is a happy-go-lucky dream chaser, a smart girl in love with falling in love. Like Carrie on Sex and the City. Or what I might have called a "Lucy Hale type" before meeting Lucy Hale.
Lucy has been playing the good girl for so long that Katy Keene executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa used her face all over his mood boards before the show had even been greenlit, let alone cast. "She was our prototype," he says. "Katy is kind of an It Girl but also the really relatable girl next door." All of which is, frankly, appealing to a commercial audience (read: you, and also me).
So Katy Keene—even though, like PLL, it has plenty of sexy stuff—will continue to perpetuate Lucy's innocent image. (Yes, Lucy's PLL character, Aria, killed someone and buried a corpse and, okay, fine, her long-term boyfriend was also her high school English teacher. But even after seven seasons, Aria was always the "good one." The morally superior murderer with a heart of gold.)
Savvy enough to realize she would forever be linked to Aria, Lucy's excited to be moving on creatively. A knowing smile crosses her face when she announces, "I'm finally at the point where I don't have to audition for teenagers. It's so nice." Over the years, Lucy's had roles in promising shows like Life Sentence and Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, although both were quietly canceled after a season or two. She has horror flick Fantasy Island coming out this year plus two lead roles in movies based on the buzzy books The Hating Game and Pornology (the latter neatly retitled A Nice Girl Like You for the film version). Basically, she's been hustling and trying hard to grow up onscreen and IRL.
"Looking back on it now, it's like, Oh, that was really tough," she says, pointing out that she spent the bulk of her 20s in a show with "pretty" in the title. She kept getting older, the way humans tend to do, but her character never aged a day, magically remaining a high school sophomore for, like, five years straight. "You did feel like you had to uphold some sort of image," she says. "I've always been very petite, but over the course of eight years, my body changed. I gained a little bit of weight, and seeing how people reacted to that really messed with my head."
As the show became more and more popular, all that internalized self-doubt got harder to hide. "I started getting all these stress-related, hormone-related breakouts," she remembers. On days when her skin flared up, "they had this specialty light for me." Ultimately, she missed out on her 20s, that decade you begin as a lump of clay, soaked in frat-party spilled beer, and end as a one-of-a-kind work of art.
"I look back and I think of all the minutes and hours I've wasted upset over how I looked or something that was out of my control," says Lucy. "I wish I could get that time back, although it has led me to where I'm at now."
And where exactly is Lucy now?
For starters, she's downright relieved that she's finally 30. "It feels nice to just not give a fuck about certain things," she says.
And since she hadn't yet had the chance for life to shape her, she did a lot of the sculpting herself, in just one day. Enter: The Haircut.
"It was the most liberating thing I've ever done," she says of the sudden decision to chop off about eight inches of her dark-brown hair. People still come up to Lucy to tell her they liked it better before. And by "people," she means men.
"I couldn't tell you the amount of times when guys were like, 'You should grow your hair out again. I like long hair.' I'm like, 'I'm not cutting my fucking hair for you.' I cut my hair for me. And I feel great with it this way."
She leans in, more animated than she's been all day: "Or a lot of guys don't like a bold lip color. I love a bold lip color. I don't care. I don't care! I truly don't dress for men at all. I dress for me and what I think is cool." Her preferred aesthetic is "a nontraditionally sexy look. More masculine stuff is really cool to me. I've never been the girl who's like, 'Ooh, tighter, lower, shorter.' I constantly want to dress like an Olsen twin."
As a kid in Nashville, Lucy didn't expect—and certainly didn't want—this life. She always figured she'd be married with kids by now. You know, the way most of us think we know exactly how our life is going to go until we grow up and realize nothing is shaking out quite the way we expected, that our childhood fantasies failed to factor in our adult realities.
"When I was younger, I was constantly wanting to be with or date someone because I was so deathly afraid of being single or by myself," Lucy explains. "Now, I'm at the point where if I meet someone, they better really elevate my life, because I love being single." (Her family plans? Also on hold. When I'd asked the Maria Tash crew how bad the pain would be from zero to IUD insertion, Lucy sidebarred that she loves her Kyleena IUD because "I don't want kids for a while.")
Like pretty much everyone on the planet, she went through a phase of falling for bad boys, convinced she alone could fix them. But also like pretty much everyone else, Lucy eventually figured something out: Nice guys are better.
"I used to be really drawn to, like, damaged people who had been through some shit," she says. "Now, I'm like, You can be nice but not boring. Nice but not a dud." (Teens will, of course, roll their eyes at this, clinging—loudly, all over social, so everyone knows—to their preference for Billy over Steve on Stranger Things, Nate over McKay on Euphoria. I once would have. Lucy definitely once would have.)
So she gave dating apps a try—specifically, a so-VIP-it-can't-be-named app.
Not to find a husband but maybe to meet a kind, non-boring guy to hang out with. And, okay, maybe also a very famous bad boy, just for fun.
"John Mayer is on there," she says. "And I pressed yes for him, but I don't think he pressed yes for me."
I feel obligated to ask Lucy if she's not even a tiny bit worried about his, er, reputation (Taylor Swift pun intended). "I'm so drawn to musical talent, I don't care," she says, truly unbothered, totally unafraid of any potential pain. This is, after all, someone who just smiled through cartilage destruction for the tenth time, and did we mention that tats—and their removal—are no walk in the park either?
At this point, I'm still shaken to my core after meeting this legitimate badass disguised as Lucy Hale. And now, I desperately want to be her partner in crime, especially after she mentions this: "Okay, so I've wanted that Cartier Love bracelet for a long time," Lucy says, looking down at her wrists. "But I was like, Oh, I need to wait for someone to buy it for me. Now, my friends are like, 'No, you buy it yourself.'" I fantasize about us heading uptown and watching her do just that. "You've got to reward yourself," she asserts. "Otherwise, what are we doing?"
I cosign, and we part ways on a crowded SoHo street. I glance over my shoulder, thrilled to know that everyone else is looking at her and seeing sugar. I got to see the spice, and it's fucking delicious.
Fashion by Cassie Anderson. Video by Liza Gipsova . Hair: Laura Polko at The Wall Group using Texture Sexy Hair. Makeup: Jenna Kristina at The Wall Group using Chanel. Manicure: Julie Kandalec using Chanel Le Vernis. Props styled by Kaitlyn Du Ross Walker for Honey Artists.
On Lucy: Red skirt look : Gucci top, skirt, and boots; Jennifer Fisher earrings; Sylvia Toledano ring. Black sparkly dress look: Isabel Marant top, skirt, and belt; Salvatore Ferragamo heels; Dannijo earrings; Mary MacGill ring. Black tank look: ATM Anthony Thomas Melillo bodysuit; RtA Brand pants; Giuseppe Zanotti mules; Sachin & Babi earrings; Jennifer Fisher rings. Red matching set look: Salvatore Ferragamo top, shorts, and heels. Jeans look: Alessandra Rich cardigan; Carine Gilson bralette; Levi's jeans; Rebecca de Ravenel earrings; Judith Leiber Couture bag.
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Source: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a30608876/lucy-hale-march-2020-cosmo-cover-story/