If the name Samantha Brick doesn't mean anything to you yet, it soon will. The British former TV exec lamented to the Daily Mail recently about the trials of being a beautiful blonde. As you can imagine, the backlash has been forceful.
In a nutshell, Brick claims that all her life men have fallen over themselves and women have been nothing but cutthroat shrews "for no other reason than my lovely looks."
Though she claims she's no Elle Macpherson, she does seem a tad full of herself. And yet she wonders why none of her so-called friends have invited her to be their bridesmaid. (Brick thinks they'd be too worried about her upstaging them. Frankly, I'm not sure any wedding party is big enough for an ego that size.)
Brick goes on to claim that she's been dropped by countless friends threatened by her mere presence in a room.
"If their partners dared to actually talk to me, a sudden chill would descend on the room. And it is not just jealous wives who have frozen me out of their lives. Insecure female bosses have also barred me from promotions at work."
She defends her case by citing Marisa Peer, author of self-help guide Ultimate Confidence, who claims that women are notorious for measuring "themselves against each other by their looks rather than achievements — and it can make the lives of the good-looking very difficult."
Be that as it may, it's hard to hate a really nice person. I know some attractive people with hearts of gold who don't obsess about their attractiveness. Unlike Brick, they aren't lacking for girlfriends.
While Brick admitted that her good looks have opened as many doors as they have slammed shut, she wasn't above using her sex appeal to get a leg up in her career.
It's hard to quite believe Brick when she says, at 41, that she is welcoming of" the wrinkles and the grey hair that will help me blend into the background." She hopes the sisterhood will be more accepting of her once her looks fade. I'm not so sure.
Is attractiveness a blessing or a curse, or a bit of both?
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