16 Young Celebs Who Are Getting Old
Age is such a funny thing when we think about it. We always hear that we should "act our age" (even though millennials are always being told that we're being immature AF) and "dress our age" (even though overalls are in again, which means that we're dressing like we're back in elementary school). No matter what age we are, we never want to seem uncool and out of touch, so we hold onto things from our past and try our best to act and look youthful. There's really nothing wrong with that… as long as we're mature (or at least trying to be mature). There's definitely a fine line between looking mature and looking old AF. Some of the celebs on this list are so far past the line they can't even see it anymore…
When it comes to female celebrities, there are a lot of them who are in their early 20s or 30s who honestly look like they're years beyond that. It's kind of confusing when we see them looking older than usual since we feel like they have access to the best hairstylists and makeup artists and fashion stylists out there. Can't they look super youthful all the time?! Check out these 15 photos of young celebs who look wise beyond their years.
15 Older And Wiser
Sarah Hyland is amazing as Haley on Modern Family and usually looks super young, which makes sense since her character is pretty young. But we can't say the same thing about this photo.
Sarah looks really old here… as in a mature, middle-aged woman. If we were honestly told that this was a photo of a random woman who's a mom and drives a carpool and bakes cookies and all that jazz, we would be all, "Okay, cool, we see it." She doesn't look like a 26-year-old. She just doesn't. Is she trying to look older on purpose? We have to wonder if that's the case since her hair is making her look definitely older. If her hair was done up properly instead of a disarrayed mess, she would probably look her age. Hair makes all the difference.
14 Hot And C(old)
Bella Thorne doesn't exactly get the best press. Okay, she gets pretty terrible press. Whether people are making fun of her tendency to wear very, um, unique clothes or gossiping about her love life, she's always in the spotlight. No one ever seems to question the fact that she's 20 years old but after seeing this photo, maybe we should wonder why she can look so much older.
Maybe it's the leather jacket? Or her makeup? Or her abnormally dark hair? It's got to be the hair, because when she's done up well with her natural locks she definitely looks her age. We're not really sure what's going on here. Maybe she just had a night of partying that aged her about… 20 years? But she definitely doesn't look 20 years old and we're not going to lie about that. We just don't know how a 20 year old like herself can look years beyond that.
13 Is That You, Kylie Jenner?
At this point, we've all seen millions of photos of Kylie Jenner… and that might not even be a high enough number. The girl loves her selfies. This photo of Kylie is much different because she looks so much older than she usually does.
If we didn't know who Kylie Jenner was (yeah, we can't imagine, but let's just go with it for a minute… ) and someone showed us this photo, we would have to say that the girl here looks like she's in her mid-to-late 30s. She definitely looks like's many years beyond 20 years old, which is her actual age. There's just something so mature about her face and her makeup and her hair. Maybe the expression on her face is what's making us think that she looks much older than she always does. We're not sure. It's kind of confusing.
12 Emma Like You've Never Seen Her
Is that really Emma Roberts?! Yup, and this is a photo that captured her with her boyfriend Evan Peters in Canada a few years back. She looks like a totally different person, this isn't the same young girl we saw in Nancy Drew and Aquamarine, is it? There's no way that's the same person!
Since we can't even recognize her, we definitely feel like she looks older than her actual age, which is 26. Honestly, a lot of 26-year-olds look super young. They can even look like teenagers. Because no one looks their age anymore, it can be impossible to tell how old anyone is, which is why telling someone that they look like they're still in high school is the worst idea ever. If they're actually in their 20s, it's just so insulting.
11 Living La Vida Lohan
Lindsay Lohan has had a rough time of it lately. Wait, did we say lately? We mean the past decade or so. It's seriously been a really long time since she was acting in popular movies and was known for something other than how weird the stories about her life are. We miss those days.
In this particular photo, Lindsay is looking… kind of old. At least much older than she usually looks. She's only 31 years old and she looks closer to 40 or even 50 in this photo. We don't get it. She's usually got gorgeous long red hair and flawless skin and makeup and looks younger. We didn't even know that she was 31 to be totally honest, we would have sworn that she was still in her 20s since she always looks youthful. This is definitely a confusing photo.
10 36 Going On 46
Nicole Richie may only be 36 years old, but if we had to guess her age based on this one photo, we would be scratching our heads for a while. We don't think that this photo makes her look young at all. She doesn't look like she's in her 30s and we would have to say that she looks closer to 46 than 36.
Of course, Nicole Richie is super stylish and we love her personal style. She was big into the whole boho fashion craze way back in the day and we've looked up to her ever since. This is just not the most flattering photo of her ever… which is totally okay. It's actually really nice to know that celebs get bad photos taken of them. We're pretty sure that we hate when our friends snap photos of us at parties and it's basically hell when we see ourselves tagged on Facebook the next morning. Shudder.
9 Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman
The Britney Spears song totally applies here, doesn't it? Ariel Winters has been rocking a much older look lately and it has definitely gotten people talking. A lot of people are confused that she's only 19 years old and yet hasn't exactly been acting or looking her age.
Okay, let's just pause for a second. Do we really think that Ariel looks 19 in this photo?! No way. No way at all. She looks 30 at the very youngest. Everything screams "older!" from her mature makeup to her long hair to her face. We're really not sure how she can even be 19. We get that's her real age and all, we're just eternally confused over here. This makes us worry that she's growing up too fast and not enjoying her youth the way that she should, but hey, what do we know? We're not starring on a super popular sitcom.
8 Mature Miley
Miley Cyrus has changed a lot lately, mainly going from a girl who was known for twerking onstage and sticking her tongue out 24/7, to a woman who wears outfits like this one and sings about being on the beach.
We love this photo of Miley because she looks gorgeous. Her hair is pretty cool and the two-toned thing is working for her, and we like her whimsical white dress. We just have to admit that she looks older in this photo. Maybe it's the fact that her hair is down, maybe it's her simple makeup, maybe it's the dress. Who knows?! All we know is that this is not the singer that we're used to seeing. She looks a decade older than her 24 years.
7 Sophisticated Songstress
Why does Adele look so much older in this photo than her age? It's the hair, right? There's just something about short hair that can make someone look a decade or two older than they are. It's like the law of hair or something. Adele definitely has that mature lady hair thing going on. If she grew her hair out, we swear that she would look much younger, but we get that that's probably not her style.
We love Adele and her gorgeous voice and her emotional songs, and the fact that she seems like an old soul is honestly why she looks older than her age. She was probably always super wise beyond her years. We can just see her as a little kid, itching to grow up and being so much more mature than everyone else on the playground.
6 What's My Age Again?
The Blink-182 song totally applies here since it's unclear what age Lea Michele is. We've loved the singer and actress since her days on Glee and have been following her career. It was super fun to watch her on Scream Queens and now she's on the new sitcom The Mayor. She's only 31 years old, but in this photo, she looks much more like 40.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. She's drop-dead beautiful, after all. We're definitely not going to argue with that. The reason that she looks older than 31 is honestly just because she's got a very mature, sophisticated, elegant look, which is something to be admired. She's growing up and becoming a woman instead of trying to act like she's still a teenager, which is what so many people do and it's the worst.
5 Britney? Really?
We know. We're surprised to see this photo of Britney Spears. She usually looks beautiful. This was just a bad hair and makeup day, we think. Or maybe a no makeup day. Which is fine. So many of us leave the house without putting on any makeup because we just want to run errands and we can't even with makeup sometimes. It happens #girlproblems.
It makes sense that if someone doesn't have any makeup on, they look either younger or older than they really are. Some of us look super young which is why we wear makeup in the first place. But for the rest of us, well, we can probably relate to Britney at least a little bit here. With her messy hair and no makeup look, she just seems so much older than her mid-30s, which is what she is.
4 25 And Feeling Fine (But Looking Older)
We might not have even though that this was Demi Lovato, but it definitely is. The 25-year-old has gone through a lot in her young life, from facing her eating disorder and struggling with mental illness and advocating that people should get help so they don't have to suffer in silence anymore.
We love Demi and really respect her. She's inspiring and she's a force. We just think that she looks much older than 25 in this photo. It could just be her face. You know how some people just have a very mature face from a fairly young age? We think that she looks 35 in this picture, not 25, but hey, that's not really the worst thing. She's gorgeous and if we could look like this, we would be pretty happy. It's not like she looks old per se. She just doesn't look her age.
3 Child Star No More
We love Abigail Breslin and probably have ever since we saw her in Signs and Little Miss Sunshine. She was the most adorable, precocious child star ever. Well, after seeing this photo, we definitely can't call her a child star anymore. This girl is all grown up and looking much older than she actually is.
How old is the actress? She's 21. Yes, 21. Between her cleavage (which is honestly a bit much since she's showing off so much more than just some cleavage and it's basically her entire chest) and whatever makeup she's wearing, she could be in her 30s and 40s. It's strange. We usually think that she looks really young, whether we're scrolling through her awesome Instagram account or watching her on a show like Scream Queens. Hmmm. It's a great big mystery.
2 Old Lady Vibes
Tavi Gevinson is just the coolest. We're just going to come right out and say that. No harsh vibes here. We don't mean any harm. We know that she's the best and that her Rookie magazine is really inspiring to girls and women everywhere.
Tavi's seriously looking like an old lady here, which we think was kind of the point, right? She's definitely rocking a hipster look that is one part young kid and one part grandma. That doesn't mean that we really get it, though. We have to admit that it's confusing to see someone so young looking so old. She's only 21 years old, after all. It kind of scares us that she can literally look like an elderly woman, all by dying her hair (or wearing a wig, we're not really sure).
1 Mid-Life Crisis Hair
Sorry Katy, it's not you. It's your hair. We don't mean to call you middle-aged or act like you're having a mid-life crisis. We know that you're not. Well, we don't know you personally, so we can only hope, but we're pretty sure that's not what's going on here.
It's just that your short hair looks like something that someone much older than you does on a dare or a whim. You know? They get sick of washing their long hair or they think that they're running around after their kids too much and they don't want to deal with their hair anymore. Or they think that since they turned 40, that automatically meant that they weren't allowed to have long hair. Kind of nuts because we should have whatever hair we want. Katy doesn't usually look like this, so we're just going to say that this was a hairstyle choice that was not our fave, and leave it at that. Phew.