Kate Beckinsale Pushes Back on ‘Insidious Bullying’ of Her Appearance and Plastic Surgery Claims: ‘Please Stop Now’

The actress, who recently suffered an undisclosed health scare, opened up about her “severe anxiety” around aging

Kate Beckinsale is clearing up plastic surgery accusations — and calling out her bullies.

The actress — who just returned to the red carpet following an extended hospital stay for an undisclosed health issue — shut down negativity surrounding her physical appearance and opened up about her “severe anxiety” around aging in a lengthy Instagram post on Sunday, May 5.

Beckinsale, 50, shared a decades-old video of herself side-by-side with a clip from her most recent public appearance, noting, “These videos might be 20 years apart — maybe more.”

Related: Kate Beckinsale Hints at 'Stomach' Problems in New Social Media Post amid Health Issues

“I hate talking about this because I hate adding to this conversation but I’m doing it because insidious bullying of any kind over time takes a toll,” she began.

“Every time I post anything — and by the way, this has been the case since I was about 30 — I am accused of having had unrecognisable surgery/using Botox using fillers/being obsessed with looking younger,” she wrote, “and it’s really such a tiresome and subtly vicious way to bully a person.”

Beckinsale went on to say that she does not “do any of those things.”

“I’ve even gone to the trouble of having a plastic surgeon categorically state that I don’t and haven’t, and still, every time there’s a chorus of my God, you’re unrecognisable. Oh my God PLASTIC, oh my God, you don’t even look like yourself anymore,” she wrote, adding that “it happens constantly and it’s usually women that are doing it.”

Related: Kate Beckinsale Honors Late Stepfather on His Birthday amid Her Health Issues: ‘Oh God I Miss You’

The actress also said she embraces aging, particularly because she previously experienced “severe anxiety” about death after going through a traumatic event as a young child.

“Life happens — obviously I have aged, everybody ages; I’m not too concerned about aging — because I found my father dead at the age of 5,” she revealed, adding that she “spent most of my teenage years and a good deal of my 20s absolutely crippled with severe anxiety and panic attacks that I was going to die of a heart attack too.”

Beckinsale said she “went to emergency rooms often” during that time, and was almost “completely immobilised by that anxiety.”

“The fact that one of the major things I am bullied about is an assumption that I can’t handle the idea of getting older is so deeply ironic when my all consuming terror was that I never thought I’d even see the end of my 20s,” she added.

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The star then broke down the difference in her appearance in the two videos, writing that she looks different not because of plastic surgery, but rather because of aging and makeup trends.

“As you can see from these two videos, what is different is that I lived in the UK, and was paler, I used to pluck the shit out of my eyebrows, I loved that brown lipstick that everybody wore,” she wrote.

“I had a fuller face, as most of us do in our late teens and 20s. Makeup techniques were matte, not nearly so glossy,” she continued, adding, “I thought contours were something I found difficult in geography lessons.”

Related: A Timeline of Kate Beckinsale's Recent Health Issues

Beckinsale also acknowledged that the “bullying” she is addressing in her post will never cease — but she would like it to.

“I’m posting this knowing full well that it will have absolutely no effect. It isn’t going to stop,” she wrote. “But I’m also posting it because whatever someone looks like, accusing them constantly of things they haven’t done, or being obsessed with youth when actually, currently I’m obsessed with surviving loss, is bullying.”

“Please stop now."

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Speaking about her recent health scare on the carpet for the inaugural King's Trust Gala on May 2, Beckinsale told PEOPLE, “It's been a rough year.”

"Because my parents have both been unwell and my cat ... it's been a bunch of things,” she said. “So that's why it's nice to come and see friends and have a little perspective. Everyone's had a bit of a rough year, I think.”

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