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Parenting & Family Quote by Cameron Diaz

"Growing up, I was the plain one. I had no style. I was the tough kid with the comb in the back pocket and the feathered hair"

About this Quote

There’s a sly magic trick in Diaz calling herself “the plain one” while detailing a look that’s instantly legible: comb in the back pocket, feathered hair, “tough kid” energy. She’s not just confessing insecurity; she’s controlling the frame. By leading with plainness, she earns the right to reveal a specific, almost cinematic image of adolescence that feels more lived-in than glamorous. It’s a recalibration of her public brand: the movie star narrating her origin story as grit, not destiny.

The intent is disarming. Diaz has spent decades being sold as effortless beauty, and this memory pokes a pin in that balloon without fully deflating it. “No style” is less a literal claim than a way to signal she wasn’t curated, wasn’t performing femininity for approval. The “tough kid” label does double duty: it’s armor against the vulnerability of not feeling pretty, and it suggests a kind of agency. She wasn’t the delicate one waiting to be chosen; she was the kid ready to scrap, comb and all.

The subtext is class and era coded. The comb-in-pocket detail is working-class practical, a small badge of street identity; feathered hair plants the story in a pre-influencer world where style traveled through local tribes and mall culture, not algorithms. In the broader context of celebrity confessionals, it’s a smart inversion: she doesn’t reject the pretty-girl narrative by moralizing it, she undercuts it with specificity, letting a slightly awkward teenager quietly outvote the myth.

Quote Details

TopicNostalgia
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Diaz, Cameron. (2026, January 17). Growing up, I was the plain one. I had no style. I was the tough kid with the comb in the back pocket and the feathered hair. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/growing-up-i-was-the-plain-one-i-had-no-style-i-44454/

Chicago Style
Diaz, Cameron. "Growing up, I was the plain one. I had no style. I was the tough kid with the comb in the back pocket and the feathered hair." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/growing-up-i-was-the-plain-one-i-had-no-style-i-44454/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Growing up, I was the plain one. I had no style. I was the tough kid with the comb in the back pocket and the feathered hair." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/growing-up-i-was-the-plain-one-i-had-no-style-i-44454/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.

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Cameron Diaz on being plain, comb in back pocket
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About the Author

Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz (born August 30, 1972) is a Actress from USA.

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