Renée Zellweger: "People Don't Know Me in My 40s"

Renée Zellweger is feeling happy, healthy, and fulfilled—and wants the world to know. After photos of her on the red carpet at an event on Monday in Beverly Hills created a flurry of online commentary and caused Zellweger to face intense scrutiny over her facial features, the actress felt the need to speak up.

"I'm glad folks think I look different! I'm living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I'm thrilled that perhaps it shows," the Oscar winner said in a statement to People. "My friends say that I look peaceful. I am healthy."

PHOTOS: See Renée Zellweger's Best Red Carpet Outfits

So what made Zellweger address the discourse (which she called "silly")? She said "it seems the folks who come digging around for some nefarious truth which doesn't exist won't get off my porch until I answer the door."

"Perhaps I look different. Who doesn't as they get older?! Ha. But I am different. I'm happy."

Zellweger, 45, explained that being healthy was something that she had been neglecting "for a long time." "I took on a schedule that is not realistically sustainable and didn't allow for taking care of myself. Rather than stopping to recalibrate, I kept running until I was depleted and made bad choices about how to conceal the exhaustion."

She told People that having boyfriend Doyle Bramhall in her life helped turn things around and she is now "finally growing into" herself.

"People don't know me in my 40s," Zellweger said. "People don't know me [as] healthy for a while."

PHOTOS: See Renée Zellweger's Changing Looks from 1987 to Today