Seemingly taking her cues from Jennifer Aniston, who penned a viral essay responding to tabloid magazines' fascination with the contents of her womb last month for the same publication, Zellweger has written a response to persistent tabloid stories alleging she has had plastic surgery, which flared up again earlier this year with the release of the trailer for her latest film, Bridget Jones' Baby.

Zellweger, 47, began the response by directly referencing a June article written by Variety critic Owen Gleiberman titled, "Renee Zellweger: if she no longer looks like herself, has she become a different actress?"

"I am not writing today because I have been publicly bullied or because the value of my work has been questioned by a critic whose ideal physical representation of a fictional character originated 16 years ago, over which he feels ownership, I no longer meet," Zellweger wrote.

"I am not writing in protest to the repellent suggestion that the value of a person and her professional contributions are somehow diminished if she presumably caves to societal pressures about appearance, and must qualify her personal choices in a public court of opinion. I'm not writing because I believe it's an individual's right to make decisions about his or her body for whatever reason without judgment."

Instead, Zellweger said she had decided to engage with the rumours because of the way in which "tabloid speculations" had become "the subject of mainstream news reporting".

"The 'eye surgery' tabloid story itself did not matter, but it became the catalyst for my inclusion in subsequent legitimate news stories about self-acceptance and women succumbing to social pressure to look and age a certain way," she wrote.

In the piece, titled "We Can Do Better", Zellweger outright denied altering her eyes through plastic surgery.

"Not that it's anyone's business, but I did not make a decision to alter my face and have surgery on my eyes," she wrote.

She went on to lament the level of media attention such rumours receive.

"It increasingly takes air time away from the countless significant unprecedented current events affecting our world," she wrote.

"It saturates our culture, perpetuates unkind and unwise double standards, lowers the level of social and political discourse, standardises cruelty as a cultural norm, and inundates people with information that does not matter."

Her words closely echoed those of Jennifer Aniston in her July essay, "For The Record".

"In this last boring news cycle about my personal life there have been mass shootings, wildfires, major decisions by the Supreme Court, an upcoming election, and any number of more newsworthy issues that 'journalists' could dedicate their resources towards," Aniston wrote.

This is by no means the first time Zellweger has criticised tabloid magazines for their fascination over her physical appearance.

After she gained nine kilograms to take on the role of Bridget Jones in 2000 and then lost it to play Roxie in the 2002 film Chicago, her weight became a focus for gossip mags.

"When [Bridget Jones' Diary] was coming out, the question I was asked the most was regarding my weight," she told Vogue in 2003. "I was followed around Heathrow by a guy who wanted to take a picture of my backside. I don't understand the obsession."

While rumours surrounding her weight gain for the Bridget Jones films (Zellweger performed a similar weight gain to star in the film's sequel) persisted, Zellweger has been fending off rumours about plastic surgery since her Best Supporting Actress win for Cold Mountain at the 2004 Oscars.

Speculation regarding the actor's face reached its peak after her appearance at a Women in Hollywood event organised by Elle magazine in 2014, with many outlets speaking to plastic surgeons and running before and after shots to attempt to prove Zellweger had altered her face.

The rumours flared up again earlier this year, when the trailer for the third instalment of the Bridget Jones series, Bridget Jones' Baby, was released.

Variety critic Owen Gleiberman seemed to take personal offence to any change in Zellweger's appearance.

"Celebrities, like anyone else, have the right to look however they want, but the characters they play become part of us. I suddenly felt like something had been taken away." Gleiberman wrote, adding, "I just hope it turns out to be a movie that stars Renée Zellweger rather than a victim of 'Invasion of the Face Snatchers.'"