By Libby Hill
Los Angeles Times
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: People magazine has declared Julia Roberts the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman.”
People announced the news on Wednesday, giving Roberts, 49, a title she’s held five times since the award’s inception in 1990.
That means Julia Roberts has been the world’s most beautiful woman for 17.8 percent of the last 28 years.
“I am very flattered,” Roberts told the magazine of her latest honor.
Roberts was just 23 when she was first feted by People in 1991, breaking through the year before with “Pretty Woman.” She won the title again in 2000, 2005 and 2010.
People’s recognition of Roberts continues its recent trend in embracing more established Hollywood beauties, with Sandra Bullock earning the honor in 2015 at the age of 50 and 47-year-old Jennifer Aniston taking the title for the second time last year.
But where, you may be wondering, are all the beautiful men?
Easy. As of 1999, men are no longer beautiful.
Or, more accurately, 1998 was the last time a man topped the “most beautiful” list — Leonardo DiCaprio, at peak post-“Titanic” beauty. Since then, men have been relegated to the ranks of “Sexiest Man Alive,” a list People has featured since 1985.
Which isn’t to say that women can’t also be sexy. People attempted a “Sexiest Woman Alive” in 2014, a title bestowed on swimsuit model Kate Upton and then never awarded again.
Meanwhile, reigning paragon of beauty Roberts most recently lent her voice to “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” and she stars in “Wonder,” the adaptation of the middle-grade novel of the same name, which will open in November.
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