The Most Stunning Transformations Of The Last Decade
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There have been some stunning transformations over the last decade. After all, whether a person changes their hair color, careers, marriage, or weight, a decade is sure to transform them. In ten years, people are guaranteed to have both their ups and downs, and many have come out of the past decade with more insight.
Along with the typical personal changes that occur over a long period of time, the entertainment industry has given women even more power over the last ten years than ever before, leaving everyone headed into 2020 with nothing but excitement for the new decade ahead. There are so many famous women who have handled their own last ten years of transformative experiences with grace, including HBO stars, Disney Channel actors, and singers.
Here are the most stunning transformations of the last decade that are sure to give you some major inspo for the years ahead.
Kesha has come a long way since 2010
Kesha started the decade by accomplishing her dreams. She took the music industry by storm when she released her debut single "Tik Tok" in 2009. It spent nine weeks as a number one hit and propelled her to stardom. However, after about four years of hit after hit, Kesha realized something was wrong. "I just, like, hated myself so much. I had so much sadness. I was projecting [a] person that promotes self-love. And I was doing none of that for myself," she told CBS News in 2018. In 2014, she made the decision to enter a clinic to receive help with an eating disorder. She also began to write a song called "Rainbow," which she wrote as "a letter to [herself," to show that she could "get it back."
She soon filed a lawsuit against record producer Dr. Luke, accusing him of sexual harassment. In 2018, she ended the decade on a high note by releasing "Rainbow," which debuted at number one. Kesha clearly underwent a stunning transformation in the last decade. She told CBS News, "I feel like I took my life back." The album Rainbow got her on Time's list of 100 Most Influential People.
Sophie Turner underwent a stunning transformation from a Hollywood newbie to an establish star
With the beginning of the decade came a new fan favorite on TV: HBO's Game of Thrones. The show gave Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, her big break when it first aired on television screens in 2011. However, Turner was just a teen when the series began. "This has been amazing and hard," Turner told InStyle in 2017. Luckily, she formed a close friendship with co-star Maisie Williams. "To have someone who understands what you're going through, who's the same age, who came from pretty much the same background — that is so rare. And we've had the same struggles in terms of dealing with body image and puberty and growing up in the public eye," she added.
It'd seem Game of Thrones sparked Turner's stunning transformation, as, while maintaining a busy filming schedule with HBO, Turner also had a recurring role in the X-Men franchise. And before the premiere of the film, Dark Phoenix, in 2019, she married Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. "I found it easier to date someone who understands the industry or is in that world," she said of their romance.
Kristen Bell experienced a stunning transformation on her journey to motherhood
Perhaps once primarily known as the actress from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell began the past decade off camera as Gossip Girl's narrator. After marrying comedian Dax Shepard in 2013 and giving birth to their two daughters in 2013 and 2014, Bell took a more kid-friendly role in Disney's Frozen, snagged an influential role in the series The Good Place, and even reprised the lead of Veronica Mars.
Regarding Veronica Mars, Bell divulged to Refinery29 that she wasn't sure if she should return to television at the time. "And I was faced with a decision of, since I'm a necessary part of reinventing this story, do I want Veronica Mars to live in the world for my girls? In the end, the answer was yes." And thank goodness she did!
In the last decade, Bell has also used her celebrity to bring attention to multiple charities. "I personally think it's a responsibility that if you're lucky enough to have been handed a microphone in your short time on this plane, use it," she told The Guardian.
Shawn Johnson had a game-changing decade and one stunning transformation
As if winning a gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics wasn't enough, Shawn Johnson decided to start off the 2010s with eyes on the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, her decade began with a rocky start as she suffered an injury from a skiing accident that prevented her from pursuing her gymnastics career any further. "I remember breaking down when I learned how bad my injury was," Johnson told Parents. She continued, "As I was falling to pieces, my mom put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'Everything happens for a reason. This was supposed to happen.'" Accepting that her gymnastics career wouldn't last forever, she presumably decided to focus on family, and she married Andrew West in 2016.
The following year, when the decade was seeming to get better and better, Johnson devastatingly revealed on YouTube that she had experienced a miscarriage. But she and her husband ended the decade with the birth of their baby girl, Drew.
Hilary Duff had a stunning transformation before returning to her Disney roots
With a television series and multiple albums under her belt, Lizzie McGuire — sorry, we mean Hilary Duff — was at the height of her career in 2010, but she was only beginning. Duff started the decade by adding novelist to her resume with her debut novel Elixir. "So much of what I've done is about telling a story, whether it's writing a song or being in a movie and acting out someone else's story, so I had this idea and I thought why not?" she told the Today show. That year, she also began life as a newlywed and, in 2012, she welcomed her son, Luca. Unfortunately, halfway through the decade, Hilary Duff and husband Mike Comrie divorced. But on a more positive note, in 2015, Duff took on a role in the series Younger.
Duff is ending the decade by, once again, taking on the fan-favorite character Lizzie McGuire. "Finally being in my 30s, it felt like a good time to revisit her. It's a complicated stage. That's what people loved about Lizzie so much — that phase of becoming a teenager," Duff, who welcomed her second child in 2018 with Matthew Koma, told Vulture.
Demi Lovato's road to recovery wasn't easy
The year 2010 marked the beginning of Demi Lovato's transition from Disney Channel and her own stunning transformation. The success of the Camp Rock films propelled the actress to stardom, but growing up in the spotlight was not easy. That year, Lovato checked into a rehabilitation center as she worked through "emotional and physical issues," as reported by CNN.
Following treatment, Lovato put on a brave face for fans, but she secretly battled with drugs and alcohol for most of the decade. "Getting sober was difficult," she told Glamour in 2016. "I went into rehab, I came out, and I didn't stay sober. I still had issues occasionally." In 2017, she celebrated her sobriety by releasing a documentary exposing her struggles on YouTube called Simply Complicated.
Lovato is now focusing on herself, not on her image. "Over the past five years I've learned life is not worth living unless you're living for yourself. If you're trying to be someone you're not, or you're trying to please other people, it's not going to work out in the long run," she told Teen Vogue in November 2019. So what will 2020 have in store? "I have new music coming," she told the magazine.
Meghan Markle found love... and endured princess problems
Many girls dream of becoming princesses, and, at the beginning of the decade, Meghan Markle probably thought that was just a fantasy for her too. However, this became a reality after she met Prince Harry. "When I first met my now husband, my friends were really happy because I was so happy," Markle told ITV News in 2019. "But my British friends said to me, 'I'm sure he's great, but you shouldn't do it 'cause the British tabloids will destroy your life.'" As a popular American actress known for her role in the series Suits, Markle didn't understand how much different foreign media could be.
"My deepest fear is history repeating itself," Harry said in a statement, as reported by Entertainment Tonight. "I've seen what happens when someone I love is commoditized to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."
Since their 2018 wedding, the couple has filed legal action against three British newspapers (via ITV News). Markle is even more adamant about keeping the tabloids away following the birth of her and Harry's son, Prince Archie, in 2019.
Jessica Alba's entrepreneurial endeavor contributed to her stunning transformation
Jessica Alba began her career as a film and television actress, but she began the decade with a concentration on family. In the early 2010s, Alba felt compelled to take her career in another direction. "I try not to put too much emphasis on the acting and entertainment side ... I put more emphasis on the other side of what I do," she told Shape regarding her entrepreneurial endeavor.
In 2011, she founded The Honest Company, a line of products ranging from beauty to baby that are all natural. With the array of products and chemicals out there, Alba wanted "the best, healthiest environment for [her] child to grow up in," as she told The Wall Street Journal. It was important the items were affordable too. "There was a bit of a social injustice that only families that made a certain amount of money and were in a certain price point could afford to give their children the better products," she added.
In 2017, Alba welcomed her third child, and she's continued to grow her billion-dollar company. "Every child, no matter what, deserves the best," Alba said.
Selena Gomez's return to the spotlight helped showcase her stunning transformation
With the finale of Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place in 2012, Selena Gomez entered a new chapter of her life. She began to accept roles on the big screen like Spring Breakers, and she started dating pop star Justin Bieber. Throughout the couple's on-again, off-again relationship and her battle with lupus that she struggled to keep private for years, Gomez found herself in and out of the public eye, taking time for herself to deal with everything going on in her life. "I got diagnosed with lupus. My mom had a very public miscarriage. So I had to cancel my tour. I needed time to just be okay," she told GQ in 2016. Gomez again took time out of the spotlight following her kidney transplant in 2017, and she came back stronger than ever in 2019, with the release of her emotional single "Lose You to Love Me."
What's next for the superstar? "I want to get older and have a family and be normal for a bit, but I ain't going anywhere anytime soon!" Gomez, who also produced Netflix's controversial 13 Reasons Why, told the Zach Slang Show in 2019.
Joanna Gaines went from blogger to big shot over the past decade
At the start of the decade, Joanna Gaines was a blogger, but she's ending the decade a celebrity. In 2012, a television producer who had seen Gaines' design blog asked her about being part of a reality show, as reported by Us Weekly. Gaines' husband, Chip, thought it was a scam, but, after pursuing the opportunity further, the pilot of HGTV's Fixer Upper was released a year later. "What we've really had to balance is our film schedule with also our construction schedule," Gaines told the Today show of their Texas-based construction business. From there, Gaines and her husband's careers and fame only grew. In 2016, Gaines and her husband published their first book titled The Magnolia Story, and, in 2017, they launched a collection with Target named Hearth & Hand.
The Gaines couple decided to end their HGTV series in 2018, but announced they were working on their own network that same year. We bet pre-fame Joanna Gaines never could have imagined this stunning transformation for herself!
Kelly Clarkson is more than a singer these days
American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson seemed to have it all following her success in the 2000s, but she somehow managed to end the decade on an even higher note. She married talent manager Brandon Blackstock, and the couple welcomed four children together. "Obviously, I'm now a mother and a wife and there's different things in my life I've progressed with. But the core of me is still the same chick you saw on Idol," Clarkson told USA Today. "I have a very normal life, other than my jobs." And boy, has she stayed busy!
To help aspiring singers, Clarkson took a job as a judge on NBC's The Voice. "The first three years of my career was me just paying for winning a talent show. ... I was just looking for anyone to talk to who knew what I was going through. And that's why I like to do that for artists on The Voice," she told USA Today.
Her friendly and outgoing personality also got Clarkson her own talk show on the network in 2019, helping her close the decade with a bang.
Candace Cameron Bure traded fans for family in the last decade
Candace Cameron Bure's acting career exploded after playing D.J. Tanner on Full House, but she started the past decade as a stay-at-home mom. "It was so important to me in the way that I was raised that family always was the number one priority," Bure told Today.
With her children having grown older, Bure decided to jump back into the entertainment industry. Along with releasing her best-selling books, taking on leading roles on Hallmark films (including some of Hallmark Channel's best and worst Christmas movies), and selling cookware over the past decade, Bure also competed on Dancing with the Stars and served as a co-host on The View. In 2016, she left the talk show to focus on her family. "And the commute of going West Coast to East Coast every week for me has been tough on me and hard for my family as well," she announced (via The Hollywood Reporter). "And I want to make sure that I'm able to spend as much time with my children and invest in all of the projects that I do to the fullest extent."
Bure also notably reprised her role as D.J. Tanner on the family-focused reboot Fuller House in 2016.
Shay Mitchell's family and business led to her stunning transformation
Shay Mitchell was just entering the spotlight with a role in Pretty Little Liars in 2010, and the show was her big break. "PLL provided me with a lifetime of memories and lifelong friends, but with anything in life all good things come to an end to make space for new," she told Wonderland. The series ended in 2017, but Mitchell went on to pursue other television projects such as the thriller You and the hilarious Dollface.
Travel is something that is extremely important to Mitchell, as she's documented on her YouTube page, and her passion for it inspired her travel accessories line BEIS that she launched in 2018. Her life took an even more exciting turn when she found out she was pregnant in 2019. She told Vogue, "You reflect on how fast time passes when you're forced to slow down."
So what's next? "I could drop an album. I could start painting. You might find me as a back-up dancer for Beyoncé. I'm open, but beyond next steps my ultimate goal is to always strive to prioritize the happiness and feeling of contentment I currently have," Mitchell told Wonderland.
Jessica Simpson had a stunning transformation when she went from singer to fashion star
The majority of the 2000s featured Jessica Simpson as a pop star, but the 2010s had her trading in the stage for the runway. Her clothing line reached the billion-dollar level. "I never dreamt that this would happen to me in a million years," Simpson told Forbes.
In 2012, she combined her love for entertainment and fashion as a mentor on NBC's Fashion Star, where hopeful fashion designers competed to have their clothing sold by major retailers. Simpson was able to encourage and inspire those who dreamed of attaining what she had made a reality. "Most of the people that do say negative things about me, they're buying my shoes!" Simpson told Forbes.
Three kids later, Simpson got to work on another kind of stunning transformation. Six months after the arrival of her third child in 2019, she went to Instagram to show off her 100-pound weight loss. "I have been every size there is," she once told Women's Health. "I know what looks good on a variety of body types. Every woman should feel like she can wear what the model is wearing down the runway."