Chloe Louise
We are used to seeing celebs looking clean, polished and flawless.
But, for some A-listers, the thought of showering every day is too much as they believe daily bathing is unnecessary.
While overwashing can cause greasy hair, dry skin, and breakouts, every person’s showering routine is different.
For those like Matthew McConaughey, showering three times a day is a necessity, but for many others, such as Michaela Strachan and Jonathan Ross, cleaning is merely a priority in their weekly list of chores.
MailOnline has compiled a list of soap-dodging stars who are not embarrassed to admit that they keep the odd shower or few.
Michaela Strachan
Michaela Strachan revealed this month that she only showers twice a week, rarely washes her hands and once ended up with a worm under her skin after eating a sandwich with grubby fingers.
The TV personality, a household name thanks to presenting roles on Springwatch and The Really Wild Show, relocated to South Africa with partner Nick Chevallier in 2002.
Based in Cape Town, Strachan welcomed son Oliver – her only child with Chevallier, a cameraman and producer – in 2005 and has since adopted a casual attitude towards personal hygiene.
Appearing on Loose Women – filmed at The Eden Project to mark Earth Day – the presenter, 58, admitted her laissez-faire approach to cleanliness came from the need to conserve water while living in South Africa during a drought.
When asked if she considered herself a ‘nature girl’ because of her rugged surroundings, she said: ‘I think, if you’ve got kids, if they come home really dirty, you know they’ve had a good day.
‘I’m not the sort of mother that looks at a child and thinks, ‘Oh get them washed.’ It’s like no, you’ve had a great day, you’ve got down, you’ve got dirty, brilliant.’
Michaela also admitted she’s not fussy about basic hygiene, adding: ‘I’m not fastidious about washing hands and things, I think we’re way too clean, all of us.
‘I went through a country with major, major droughts, and we so we learnt to only have a shower every three days.’
The presenter also recalled an unsavoury hygiene-related incident that left her with a bug under her skin while she filmed with a group of animals.
She said: ‘I was doing a lot of work in zoos at the time so I was in cages, and I was with animals, and I didn’t wash my hands properly. Then, I ate a sandwich. So, it was from animal faeces that I ended up getting a worm that was under my skin.
‘It would itch and then I’d get my partner to take a picture and you could see this sort of worm under the skin.’
Asked if she was ‘panicked’ by the situation, she added: ‘I got quite attached to this man – literally! I ended up giving him a little name, you know, ‘William the Worm’.
‘So, I had some worm tablets to try and get rid of it [but it] didn’t touch it.
Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross revealed in March that he and his wife, Jane Goldman, shower less than once a week – because he feels all grooming is a waste of valuable time.
The chat show host, 63, said he and his wife were like a pair of dirty ‘hamsters,’ and he ‘resents’ the fact he has to wash regularly.
He said: ‘Do you think I give enough of a s**t about anything to bother spending any extra time on grooming whatsoever – I resent the fact that I have to shower.
‘I sometimes go at least a week without showering – at least. So does Jane sometimes. We’re like a couple of hamsters in their own straw in that bed.’
Speaking on the Parenting Hell Podcast, he said he hadn’t showered on the morning of the interview after comedian Josh Widdicombe asked him when he’d last showered.
Jonathan, saying he hadn’t done anything to work up a sweat, said: ‘It was yesterday. Why bother doing it two days in a row, what’s wrong with you? I didn’t do any exercise.’
He even confessed he once went two weeks without washing in the Florida heat because he thought he’d been in a swimming pool – but then discovered he still smelled badly.
He added: ‘When we were on holiday – we have a place over in Florida – because it’s sunny and I’m jumping in and out the swimming pool, I probably didn’t shower properly for two weeks.
‘And I had a smell under my right armpit, and I thought ‘That’s bad, I better get rid of that’.
‘So I had a shower, it didn’t go. Had another one, it didn’t go. I’m not making this up. I had to shave the hair off my armpit to get rid of it.
‘It was so ingrained. I just did the one. Why would you do two? The other one was still fresh. I favour one, so the right arm was doing all the work.’
However, he did say sometimes if he decides to have a bath he will shower just before, so that he’s not sat in filthy water and dead skin.
He said: ‘The other extreme though is I sometimes shower before having a bath. That’s the Japanese way.’
Explaining why, he added: ‘Because you’re lying in what’s coming off your body, so why would you bathe first and lie in the debris?’
Brad Pitt
Even hunks like Brad Pitt have been exposed for their cleaning habits, as the actor’s roommate revealed that he would go days without showering.
Despite his clean-cut image nowadays, the actor, 60, used to go days without showering before he found fame.
His former roommate Jason Priestley, 54, revealed Brad’s showering routine during an interview on Live with Kelly and Mark in January, 2024.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 actor told hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos that he, Brad, and their roommate would compete to see who could go the longest without showering.
A game that Jason hailed the champion of as he could go ‘a long time without showering’.
He said: ‘Yes, yes he was one of my roommates for a brief period of time.
‘There were three of us living in a two-bedroom apartment in a really crappy part of LA.’
‘Brad wasn’t as bad as my other roommate, who was an absolute disaster, but Brad was okay,’ he added.
‘We used to play this game, all of us, to see who could go the longest without showering.
‘I think about it now, I’m like ‘Dude, how disgusting! What were you thinking?’
As Kelly questioned Jason more about the filthy game, asking who would go the longest without showering, he admitted: ‘Brad, always Brad.
‘I don’t think he does that anymore, but back then, he could go a long time without showering.’
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher
Some celebs pass down their controversial showering habits to their children.
Mila Kunis and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, admitted in July 2022 that they only bathe their children when they see dirt and avoid using soap on own their bodies.
Ashton, 46, and Mila, 40, admitted they only give daughter Wyatt, six, and son Dimitri, four, a scrub when they look physically grubby.
And even when the youngsters dip in the tub, they hardly ever use soap because they don’t want to dry their delicate skin out.
The couple also made it clear they don’t like to use soap on their skin, with the actor stating he only ever lathers up his ‘armpits and crotch’ while Mila was a little more bawdy, saying she washes the essentials like her ‘slits and t**s.’
They discussed their family’s approach to hygiene on the Armchair Expert podcast, which Dax Shepard and Monica Padman host.
The conversation began when Dax told Monica that she should not be excising the natural oil on her skin by using soap every day.
In response Monica replied: ‘I can’t believe I am in the minority here of washing my whole body in the shower. Who taught you to not wash?’
The Bad Moms actress then explained that she hardly ever had a shower during her childhood because they didn’t have hot water at home.
Mila, who was born in Soviet Ukraine, explained: ‘I didn’t have hot water growing up as a child, so I didn’t shower much anyway.’
She added: ‘But when I had children, I also didn’t wash them every day. I wasn’t that parent that bathed my newborns – ever.’
Ashton added: ‘Now, here’s the thing: If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point.’
And the same principle applies to his own hygiene habits.
He explained: ‘I wash my armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever. I got a bar of Lever 2000 that delivers every time. Nothing else.’
However, the couple – who tied the knot in 2015 – do like to wash their faces after getting hot and sweaty at the gym.
Ashton said: ‘I do have a tendency to throw some water on my face after a workout to get all the salts out.’
Mila added: ‘I do wash my face twice a day.’
Kristen Bell
But Mila and Ashton are not the only famous family to encourage their washing routines on to their children.
During a joint interview on The View in August 2021 with her husband, Dax Shepard, 46, Kristen Bell, 41, revealed she likes to ‘wait for the stink’ before bathing their two children.
The couple share a daughter, Delta, nine, and a son, Lincoln, 11, together.
‘We bathed our children every single night prior to bed as the routine, then somehow they just started going to sleep on their own without the routine and by George we had to start saying like, ‘Hey, when was the last time you bathed them?” Dax said.
Kristen said the smell was biology’s way of indicating it was time for a clean-up.
‘I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink,’ Kristen said. ‘Once you catch a whiff, that’s biology’s way of letting you know you need to clean it up.
‘There’s a red flag. Honestly, it’s just bacteria; once you get bacteria, you gotta be like, ‘Get in the tub or the shower.’
‘So I don’t hate what they’re are doing. I wait for the stink,’ she said.
Dame Vivienne Westwood
If anyone doubted Dame Vivienne Westwood’s eco-warrior credentials, the designer, who sadly passed away on December, 29, 2022 aged 81, made a rather startling confession in 2014.
She revealed that her commitment to the environment meant she did not take a shower every day and even shared dirty bathwater with her husband.
Instead, Dame Vivienne said she simply ‘washes her bits’ each morning before dashing out of the house.
The rock punk designer made the comments during a campaign video for animal rights group PETA. In the footage, she explains that she has become a vegetarian in protest at how the meat industry is depleting the world’s water supplies.
Despite claiming that she can take ‘guilt free’ long showers because she does not support the meat trade, she said: ‘Normally at home I’m not used to the habit of a shower.
‘I just wash my bits and rush out in the morning and more often than not get in the bath after Andreas.
She added: ‘I’m sorry but whatever you do is helpful. We have to start somewhere.
‘I know PETA because I’m a big friend of Pamela Anderson and Chrissie Hynde and they introduced me to it. That’s why I wanted to accept the invitation to do something to help stop cruelty to animals.
‘This is about how precious water is, it’s more important than the gas that the people want to dig up and we’re prepared to poison our water for that for example. Eating meat is one of the most environmentally damaging things it’s possible to do.
‘I’m a person who’s got enough money to make choices and this is my choice. We don’t need to eat animals, there’s too many of us anyway and eating animals is destroying the world.
‘I believe that we are an endangered species and we need to think about what we’re doing. We’re probably killing ourselves through eating meat.’
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