Drew adopts the natural look

Posing hand on hip in a cutaway dress, Drew Barrymore has an announcement to make.

She has joined the growing number of celebrities who have stopped shaving under their arms - and don't care who knows it.

The 29-year- old Charlie's Angels star made her fashion statement at a New York catwalk event featuring designer Marc Jacobs.

With his penchant for dressing models in combat boots and army-style jackets, Jacobs is famed for his grunge-inspired look - and Drew certainly fitted in.

One of those attending the event at the Lexington Avenue Armory observed: 'She looked absolutely stunning but all people were talking about backstage were her hairy armpits.'

Born into one of Hollywood's great acting dynasties, the granddaughter of John Barrymore has never shunned publicity.

She appeared in her first advert at nine months and her first TV movie aged two. She hit the big time aged seven, as the cherubic Gertie in Steven Spielberg's ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.

By the age of nine she had become a heavy drinker and at 11 turned to drugs.

She entered rehab for the first time when she was 13 - and returned for a second spell within a year.

In 1994 she married Welsh bar owner Jeremy Thomas but it lasted just seven weeks while her second marriage, to Canadian comic Tom Green, ended in divorce three years

ago. She is rumoured this week to have dumped latest boyfriend Fabrizio Moretti, drummer with the rock group The Strokes.

By going for the natural look armpit-wise, she is in famous company. In April 1999 Julia Roberts revealed her secret as she waved to the crowd at the UK premiere of Notting Hill.

A year ago Elizabeth Jagger posed, arms aloft, in a series of portfolio photos sporting an extravagant curly perm with matching accessories.