Zooey Deschanel covers the April issue of Cosmopolitan UK, and she’s looking whimsiquirkilicious again, unlike her depressing turn at the Vanity Fair Oscar party last weekend. This photo was taken before Zooey’s new haircut (if in fact that was a haircut), and she’s wearing what I’d describe as a hipster-lingerie dress. I don’t dislike Zooey, but a little bit of her goes a long way, and (to me) she’s quickly reaching the point of overexposure. Still, I understand that a lot of people like her on “The New Girl,” so perhaps this cover will arrive into the welcome arms of her fandom. The interview is nothing special though, but when has Cosmo ever really published a great interview? Probably never, so let’s go with it. Zooey talks a lot about bullying and how she wants to make a difference in the lives of young girls today:
She (like every other celebrity) was bullied: “People really teased me. It was really bad. Nothing could be as hard as middle school. There were insecurities that I think I would have worked through a lot faster if I’d had certain tools and could have connected with certain people earlier.”
On her website: “We [Molly McAleer, Sophia Rossi and Zooey] started Hello Giggles [hellogiggles.com] for fun, but now I feel like I’m on a mission to make it a thing that helps other women. If there had been a place like that for me when I was 13, I would have felt so much less alone.”
On her musical: “When we’re recording [with She & Him bandmate, Matthew Ward], we’ll almost always like the first or second take. I’d rather have something that’s imperfect but emotionally true than try to sing it perfectly.”
She still believes in true love despite her divorce from Ben Gibbard: “[True love] that lasts forever… yes, I do believe in it. My parents have been married for 40 years and my grandparents were married for 70 years. I come from a long line of true loves.”
On her ideal guy: “I’d be more likely to go for somebody who is like me. Well, I like creative people, so whatever that means… Yeah, authentic and creative.”
[From Cosmopolitan UK
I don’t really know what it means for someone to be “authentic,” do you? Maybe it means that a person doesn’t pretend to be someone that they aren’t, or maybe there’s some mystical Zooey meaning out there. As for “creative,” Zooey plays the same role in nearly every movie or television show. However, she’s just co-launched a production company, so maybe we’ll see some variety in that area of her professional life.
Zooey’s date for the VF Oscar party was her boyfriend, Jamie Linden, who has been her guy since last June. I think he’s cute. Maybe Zooey’s trying to stay away from hipster dudes.
Photos courtesy of Cosmo UK and WENN
Why is it cool for celebs to say that they were bullied? Of course I don’t know if Zooey in particular was, but it seems to be the “Celebs are just like us” thing to do these days.
“Whimsiquirkilicious” what a cool word.
It might be because they probably were bullied in school. Most people in the arts are quirky and “different.” When you’re an adult, it’s not as much of a problem to be different than when you’re in middle school.
I’ve always been a bit odd and was a theatre major in college. My daughter is an artist and has purple and pink hair. She was bullied to the point of crying when she was in middle school. Now that she’s in high school, she’s accepted as an artsy person.
I can believe most of these actors, especially someone like Zoey, was bullied in middle school.
Middle school, unless you’re one of the popular kids, sucks for a lot of people.
I was brutally bullied in middle school, I think a lot of girls are/were. I believe Zooey. It’s a rough age to get through.
Someone threw a water balloon at me from a passing car a while I was carrying a huge sombrero walking home one day from school. It upset me deeply, but I still went to school the next day. I share this story with others. If it helps just ONE person not feel traumatized when hit with a water balloon from passing cars while carrying a sombrero, then I have done my work.
hahahahah
Can we just declare you queen of the internet and die happy?!
Thank you for that!
I will remember you the next time someone throws a water balloon at me.
They probably were bullied. Bulling is very common. I was bullied how about you.
Bullying is such a buzzword these days. Truthfully I respect Jonah Hill more for admitting he was a bully in school and apologising and explaining why he was such a dick.
Kids who do the bullying are someone’s children too, the source of the problem needs to be examined but very few people are going to admit that they deliberately victimised someone else.
I’m sick of her.
Ugh… Such a poser.. She annoys me!
Oh my goodness! She was bullied?! No commoner, would ever, ever know what that’s like.
I used to ADORE her. Now I just want her to shut up sbd go away.
I *love* that brick red dress in the second picture. Exactly the cut I’ve been looking for.
As for being bullied, I tend to believe most of the celebrities who talk about their school experiences. Honestly, I think it would be a harder task to find someone who wasn’t teased or bullied at some point during school. Of course there’s a difference between being occasionally teased and being flat-out targeted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of these egocentric celebrities find it difficult to tell the difference.
That’s not to detract from Zooey’s little support website(?) but unfortunately, bullying is something we’ve probably all experienced at some point in our lives. I definitely think it’s being over-used as an attempt to plug the “I’m just like you” angle.
I think alot of celebrities were teased at school BUT I can’t think of anyone that I know who didn’t get teased at some point during school. Kids are a-holes I can certainly say that I teased people at school but I was never a bully. People are going to be mean to you sometimes it doesn’t mean it’s bullying.
The part that really bothers me about these bullying narratives is when stunning actresses talk about it as a consequence of when they were not gorgeous (gasp!). I have yet to read one of *those* interviews that does not sound smug and condescending.
Euugh yes, another favourite is when they claim that they were ‘outsiders’ at school, how none of the cute boys ever looked at them and they had such low self confidence. Bore off, I’m pretty sure at some point during school everyone felt like an outsider it doesn’t mean you’re a special snowflake. Smug and condescending, you’ve summed it up nicely.
The bullying today is worse than when I was in school. It goes beyond teasing. I had to take my daughter off of Facebook until a year ago because of the bullying. These kids see nothing wrong with telling a fellow student they wish they were dead and should just end it because the world would be so much better if they weren’t in it. It happened to my daughter and she is one of the nicest people you could ever meet.
After a year of counseling, I finally let her back on Facebook with the caveat that she could only be friends with people she was actually friends with in person and that if anyone started bullying her online or in person, she was to block them.
This is not just teasing. The stuff these kids are dealing with today is far, far worse.
Sherry I’m not disputing that bullying goes on, what I am saying is that people, celebs in this case, seem to think that bullying and teasing are one and the same an I’m saying there’s a distinct difference. A lot of the times what they say was bullying was actually just teasing that a lot of us dealt with.
Just to clarify what you’re saying happened to your daughter is bullying, that behaviour has gone well beyond teasing.
I agree. I also hate it when someone like Meann Rimes says she’s bullied. She can walk away from it. She can quit Twitter. She doesn’t have to engage.
I think the term “bullied” is overused by many, including celebrities.
Sorry Sherry, I’m no fan of Rimes but there is a vicious pack of mean girls on her trail. I know nothing about her but have been horrified to read some of the vitriolic attacks on-line against her. Internet anonymity has taken bullying to a whole new level of cruelty.
@Nina – that kind of brings up an interesting question. If LeAnn is being bullied via Twitter but also engages in bullying, does it negate her being bullied? Or are some people equal victims and perpetrators? What does it mean if someone is both?
Whats with the grand ma dress yuck. Id like to see zooey be sexy for once and look different. She always looks the same in a little girl dress kinda annoying. I know thats her style but I think she needs to mix it up.
I love New Girl, but am so-so on Zooey right now.
Agree with Amelia about the overuse of celebs trying to relate with bullying stories.
Oh, puh-leez. She attended artsy-fartsy Crossroads, where most of the kids are just like her: privileged and whimsiquirkilicious.
Maybe she was teased, but methinks she’s exaggerating.
I was one of the only kids at my middle/high school who didn’t get the keys to a brand new BMW on her sweet sixteenth. Yes, it made me self-conscious at the time — it represented my family’s socioeconomic status to an extent — and I was made to feel as someone who was kind of on “the outside.” But it seems so trite now, I wouldn’t feel the need to bring it up in an interview. Kids can be petty. Big whoop.
Now, if she had been seriously bullied, that’s a whole other situation. But I don’t think that’s what she means in this interview.
On an unrelated noted – can I just say I’ll be ecstatic when this “all shades of nude” dress thing goes away. Maybe it looks ok in person, but it is not camera friendly at all. So boring!
Good grief. Everyone was teased in middle school and everyone teased everyone else. I hate when people play innocent like they were solely picked on like there were no other kids in the school being picked on or like they didnt have anything cruddy to say about anyone else. Its just the way of the world when you’re 12.
True that. I think I’d have respect for a celeb who admitted to bullying or teasing others and talked about how crappy they feel about it now. I was teased in middle school, and I did some ruthless teasing myself. I feel bad about some of the crap I said to people. I’m sure we all have both experiences. Celebs should admit to that too.
She’s always photoshopped to the nth degree! Why!
I seriously hate her Rimmel ads where it’s impossible to tell who she is or if she is a human at all.
oh I know! They MAJORLY botch her face in all those ads..just do a google image search of ‘Zooey Deschanel Rimmel’..scary results!!
Bullying is not getting teased. Everyone gets teased, and if you have siblings, that alone escalates the chances it will happen. Bullying is when another student harasses another student relentlessly. Everyone has been teased in school, and if you weren’t well… Good for you? That said, Zooey, stop. Just… Stop. I used to like you, and you have become try hard to me. Sigh.
I just want to note that it doesn’t seem that Zooey herself used the word “bullied”- she just said “teased.”
Agreed, all she said said was that was teased. She didn’t use the word “bully”- at least not in this excerpt.
We don’t know precisely what happened to her, or how bad it was, or what it was about. Seem premature to tell if it was teasing or bullying.
Ugh this one.
Can the twee sh*t after 30, lady. It’s annoying and try-hard. And people your age should be over high school. Grow up.
i don’t get the hate for her playing the same character in a lot of her roles. Tina Fey is a lot like Liz Lemon and has a lot of awards for that role.
Because of her self proclamations of creativity are proven as false when compared to her resume
She is not creative as an actress, but she is also a musician – she writes her own songs, sings and plays multiple instruments and I think that can be qualified as being creative. I enjoy New Girl very much but I like Zooey even more as a She&Him member than as Jessica Day.
How so?
She is musical and has been acting since she was very young. Despite that you can still be a “creative” person without needing a bunch of crap to show for it…it’s a mindset.
I absolutely LOVE new girl. It is such a great show and all the guys on there are really hilarious.
I think Zooey is gorgeous and I don’t think she is “try hard” i think she is very genuine…like it or hate it, she is who she is. If she wants to dress like a 12 year old in her 30’s…there are worse things I suppose.
Everybody is bullied at some point growing up. Either at school or at home. It’s a horrible part of life, but everybody goes through it at some level. I’ve never met anyone who was not bullied. Even the bully became a bully because of how he/she was treated at home.
I know kids in America are especially vicious, but I just can’t stand how all celebrities feel the need to attract pity by telling the world they were bullied. So? Us too.
I would just like to hear someone tell stories about how they stood up to their bullies and took charge. Adults teach kids to feel sorry for themselves way too much, but nobody bothers to teach them to stand up for themselves and speak up and to not be afraid.
My parents definitely taught me to stand up for myself and not be afraid of anyone after I was being bullied by a middle school TEACHER. God, she was a mean obese bitch who made me cry everyday (mind you I had already had a 1st grade teacher who hit me often, so I could not deal with it anymore and I was failing everything). So Dad sat me down and told me stories about all the stuff he’d been through, put everything in perspective for me and I just realized I needed to stop being so afraid of people. Changed my life! Last time I was ever bullied. I became more confident and spoke out more.
People just don’t talk to their kids.
Yes downtown fan she is an annoying try hard; Cosmo covers are so down market; give me the beauty, sexy, trashy glam covers of the 70s – 90s with supermodels when HGB was at the helm and Scavullo was her right hand man; now it – like most mags – is owned by a conglomerate and just used to advertise whatever celeb has a movie/tv show/cd to promote – another example where business ruins any kind of art.
I love those old covers… That said, I have never met one emotionally stable person over the age of 20 who reads Cosmo.
Like all the great fashion of that period they are all over youtube/internet and have millions of views – good to contrast how fashion once was done with now.
Her boyfriend looks like a cross between John Krasinski and the husband of that one British chick, Pringles Geldof or something. Anyone else see it?
LOL Peaches Geldof…and I dont see her husband when looking at this guy, but I kinda see the John K resemblance..God bless him (John K) I think he is so handsome.
I think she probably was bullied in middle school. I saw a photo of her at about age 13 or 14 and she was FUNNY-LOOKING and was probably quite chubby. She’s since grown into her looks but that kind of memory never goes away.
She didn’t cut her hair, its curled & pinned up
BFD. When I went to school, bullying meant that you were physically attacked by gangs of low-IQ dirtbags.
As a young middle school teacher its rough out there for everyone, popular or not. Its such a complex age.
I mean I understand her perspective, but “Nothing could be as hard as middle school?”
-Starvation?
-Sexual assault?
-Molestation?
-Genocide?
-Poverty?
-Homelessness?
Anyone? Anyone?