Here's a fun game for your next family dinner: ask everyone what they remember about Ashley Judd. Half the table will say "she was in those Kiss the Girls movies," a quarter will say "didn't she get weird about her face," and the last person—the one who actually pays attention—will say "she's the reason the internet can't call women 'puffy' without consequences anymore."
That's the thing about Judd. While the rest of us were busy forming opinions about her cheekbones, she was quietly doing the kind of work that gets you threatened by organized crime and sued by a sitting president. In the same decade.
Quick refresher for those of you who only know her from the tabloids. Judd was a legit movie star in the '90s and early 2000s—Double Jeopardy, High Crimes, that whole "tough woman with a secret" genre that Hollywood cranked out until they realized they could just make the same movie with a man and pay him triple. She also got a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School. Not an honorary one. An actual one, with papers and deadlines and everything. She did that while people were writing think-pieces about whether she'd had work done.
Then in 2015, she wrote an op-ed for Mic that basically detonated the internet. She said she'd been sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein. This was before the New York Times piece. Before #MeToo. Before everyone suddenly remembered they'd always hated that guy. She was early, which in Hollywood is the same as being radioactive.
But here's what doesn't get enough play: Judd also sued a sitting president. Not in the metaphorical "I'm mad at the government" way. In the actual "I am taking Donald Trump to court for defamation over a tweet about my appearance" way. She won. Well, she won the right to proceed, which in legal terms is like winning the right to keep bleeding money on lawyers. Still, she did it. The whole time, the internet was making memes about her face.
And that's the part that sticks in my craw. We spent years dissecting her appearance—was she puffy? Was she sick? Was she aging badly?—while she was out here testifying against a movie mogul and getting death threats from the cartel because she was trying to protect elephants. Elephants. She got threatened over elephants. Meanwhile, the biggest controversy most of us faced that year was whether our avocado toast was Instagram-worthy.
Judd later revealed she'd been battling a serious illness and had been on steroids, which explained the "puffiness" everyone felt entitled to comment on. Imagine that. You're fighting for your life, fighting for other women, fighting for endangered animals, and the top Google result for your name is a bunch of strangers debating whether your face looks right.
So no, this isn't a "where is she now" piece. She's right here. She's been here. She's been doing the work while everyone else was busy being a critic. The only difference is now she doesn't owe anyone an explanation about her face, her career, or her choices. She never did.
**The Takeaway:** We owe Ashley Judd an apology, but she's probably too busy actually changing things to accept it. The rest of us should take notes.