Courteney Cox, like so many other women in the public eye, has always felt an enormous amount of pressure to look a certain way. And, having grown up in the spotlight (she landed her first role back in 1984 at the age of 20), the glare of the media was particularly strong.

As she grew older, more and more tabloids began to comment on her physical appearance. So she turned to facial fillers – a cosmetic procedure where injections are used to plump the skin, thus smoothing out lines.

“The next thing you know, you’re layered and layered and layered,” she told newbeauty.com. “You have no idea because it’s gradual until you go, ‘Oh s***, this doesn’t look right.’ And it’s worse in pictures than in real life.”

Cox says she stopped the treatment when one of her best friends – who she chose not to identify by name – told her she thought she had gone too far.

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“I have one friend who was like, ‘Whoa, no more!’” said Cox.

“I thought, ‘I haven’t done anything in six months.’ I [just] didn’t realise.”

Cox then made the decision to stop having the procedure, and says she is happier without it.

“I feel better because I look like myself,” she said. “I think that I now look more like the person that I was. I hope I do.”

However, she said she’d had to learn to “embrace” the fact her appearance – which Hollywood places so much worth upon – was changing.

“Things are going to change,” said Cox. “Everything’s going to drop. I was trying to make it not drop, but that made me look fake.

“You need movement in your face, especially if you have thin skin like I do. Those aren’t wrinkles – they’re smile lines. I’ve had to learn to embrace movement and realise that fillers are not my friend.”

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Cox previously addressed her use of cosmetic procedures during an appearance on Running Wild With Bear Grylls.

She said at the time: “I was trying to keep up with getting older and trying to chase that. It's something you can't keep up with. The more you relax with it and the less you try […]

“Sometimes you find yourself trying and then you look at a picture of yourself and you go ‘Oh god, I look horrible.’”

Grylls praised her for discussing the issues many women consider, and she added: “I have done things that I regret and luckily there are things that dissolve and go away. So that's good because it's not always been my best look.

“Now I have a new motto: let it be.”

Images: Rex Feature