Self-Esteem: Why You Should Pray to St. Bernadette Peters

If you think Bernadette Peters (seen recently on Ugly Betty) looks phenomenal for fifty, you might believe she is a miracle at age sixty-one.

As soon as I found that out, I took to the internet – determined to find out what plastic surgery she had undergone. I found the same thing over and over – doctors saying she must have done something but they couldn’t tell what that something was. Doctors also cited good genes, staying out of the sun, and not smoking helping Bernadette Peters to remain youthful.

Women will go through a lot of cockamamie rituals and surgeries to remain young and looking beautiful - Bernadette Peters is no exception. Where she is exceptional is that she still looks like Bernadette Peters.


To put it in perspective, think about Stacy Ferguson lip syncing to Steve Winwood's "The Finer Things" on Kids Incorporated, then of the Fergie today, and tell me that you don't want to put Bernadette Peters on the dollar bill.



How many times have you seen a celebrity and gone, “What the hell happened to her lips?” Collagen injections have been in vogue for almost twenty years and are one of the easiest appearance modifications to spot - and the ugliest. I burned my hand in an oven when I was sixteen and the burn became a large, pussed up blister that at one point, could jiggle. That’s what I see when I look at someone like Lisa Rinna on the red carpet or Meg Ryan’s once delicate lips - jiggling sacs of pus that can magically talk. Even Jessica Simpson – who is my age – is regularly getting this procedure done. Maybe it’s because I have just a bit more than the average girl in the lip department, but I’ve always found the thin lips to be beautiful - like Margot Kidder. I can’t even find Margot Kidder lips anywhere except on Margot Kidder – who is just crazy enough to keep them that way.

Looking at bad plastic surgery - seeing women (and men) desperate to look good/better/different at any cost, Bernadette Peters is inspiring. There was no "at any cost" for Bernadette. She just made smart decisions about her lifestyle. She is taking care of her product for the long haul. I think a lot of young, recently young, and desperately seeking young Hollywood wants short term investments to pay off. Have you looked at breasts? Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Scarlett Johansson’s breast stock have all had rises and falls. And did Sarah Jessica Parker really think that we wouldn’t noticed those two things stuffed into her dress at the Academy Awards? Just because we’ve never seen her breasts in any episode of Sex & The City, doesn’t mean we don’t know what a B cup looks like.

I think what happens a lot with plastic surgery junkies is that they never like what they see. Something can always be changed, even after several surgeries, because the original product was never good enough. That’s the secret to why Bernadette Peters looks so amazing at age sixty-one: when she was younger, she saw herself in a mirror and decided that nothing needed to be changed. And nothing has.