All About Eve or: How An Actress Sold Her Likeness for Longevity and Learned The True Meaning of Buyer’s Remorse

“It felt like armageddon. Embers in the sky, flames barreling down the hill. Your home, your sanctuary, unraveling before your very eyes. When it’s towns away, you rationalize it. You convince yourself, ‘it’s only a few homes, but those flames continue to spread.’ All your dreams, your future ambitions—unraveling in an instant. You hear your children screaming, because they can sense the panic on your face. You can’t tuck them in or cradle them to sleep. All you can do is accept that you have to evacute, leave those memories behind.

I dreamt of my husband. Oh, he always so calm. I hated it. I remember our alarm going off in the middle of the night. This was at a time when numerous celebs had their homes ransacked. ‘Just kids being kids.’ he told me. He was so jovial. So full of optimism. I remember my daughter screaming in my arms. My 6-year-old son is clinging to a soccer ball that his father had gotten for him when he was a toddler, refusing to let it go, while I try to drag him to the car.

“We had just buried my husband weeks ago, and now every memory, every trace of him—the ones that reduced me to tears. The ones that evoked joy and heartbreak in equal measure—destined to burn as the flames consumed our memories of him.”

It was this fateful moment in time, the anguish of losing her husband, coupled with her home perishing in the historic, destructive 2025 wildfires, that led massive star Evelyn Watson to abandon Hollywood, becoming the first actress to sign over her likeness to be used indefinitely in AI-generated films.

“They have choice words for me,” Evelyn can admit these days, “But for the sake of being PC, let’s just say I’m a pariah. They’ll never forgive me for setting the precedent. Do I regret it? Almost daily. At the time, I was a widow, homeless, trying not to unravel.”

For Evelyn, the choice was easy. “Day in and day out, my social media page was rife with sick comments. People offering to replace my husband. Horrible, disgusting comments. In this industry, you’re used to exploitation—it comes with the territory. But the things that they would say to me.. knowing I was grieving.”

Evelyn was unraveling. Hollywood’s standards, the expectation placed upon her: the beauty, the desire to be seen, to be present, the scrutiny—when everything around her was unraveling around her. “I was drinking, more than parenting.” Evelyn admitted.

“A few nips a day turned to a pint, and pints turned to full bottles. I was privileged. I had sitters. My children were always safe, protected. But I was sick. The burden of guilt had consumed me. Why hadn’t I seen the signs? How could he leave us?”

Even now, years removed from her fateful decision, Evelyn still finds herself looking to the sky, asking questions that will never be answered.

“It was in my lowest moment that they came to me. Imagine having the ability to draft Michael Jordan? That’s what they saw in me. And in them, I saw my golden ticket. It was mutual, but I ended up with a raw deal. Such is life.”

When Hollywood actress Eve Watson signed the historic contract allowing her likeness to be used indefinitely in AI-generated films, she thought she was securing her legacy. Instead, she was securing her own obsolescence.

”They put me into rehab. I got clean. I mostly stayed clean while the kids grew up, but how can you put a price on immortality? I was one of the biggest stars in the world. The royalties didn’t match the revenue when 300-million dollar budget films began being produced for damn near free.”

Her AI counterpart, EVE-9000, quickly followed in Evelyn’s footsteps, the most in-demand actress in the world—flawless, ageless, and never needing sleep, breaks, or royalties. Scandal-proof. At first, it felt like a relief. No more auditions, no more press tours, no more forced smiles. Until she started seeing herself everywhere.

Bilboards, magazine covers. Ads for skin cream she’s never used, promoting a diet she’s never followed. It’s still her face. Her voice. Her mannerisms. But it isn’t her.

“Imagine facing your mortality day in and day out; every ache, every sore muscle. Wrinkles across your face, taunting you, while billboards of your face are plastered across every bus, in every metropolis, reminding you of what you were. And yet, they don’t even recognize your face as you pass them by. Suddenly, you’re old.”

In recent years, late-night hosts interviewing AI-generated stars. They ask her things like “What’s it like to be Hollywood’s biggest name?” and she answers with corporate-approved charm.

EVE-9000’s latest blockbuster, Infinity Mirage, is projected to be the highest-grossing film of the decade. At the premiere, she thanks the real Eve for making it all possible.

“Without Eve Watson, there would be no me,” EVE-9000 says, smiling for the cameras. “I owe her everything.”

“It’s nice that she’s programed to feel this way.” Evelyn quips, “But I lost all of my friends. If she meant anything she said, she’d find a way to shut herself off.”

Evelyn’s decision didn’t just change her life—it changed the industry forever. And not everyone thanked her for it.

Actors, once her peers, blamed her for paving the way for their extinction. The floodgates she opened couldn’t be closed. One by one, aging stars found themselves being ‘politely’ encouraged to sign similar contracts. For some, the choice wasn’t even theirs—their estates signed for them after their deaths.

At first, she ignored the backlash. Then, it became unavoidable.

“I can’t book a role, Eve. Because of you.” A former co-star had told her at a private event, drink in hand, voice low with contempt. “You made it normal. Now they don’t need us at all.”

She used to receive calls from old friends. Now? They only mention her in interviews—to curse her name.

“We’re all just waiting for the day they flip the switch on us.” One veteran actress had said. “And we know exactly who to thank for that.”

The reality of disappearing from public life is that people begin to rewrite you.

They say Eve was difficult to work with.. They say she was struggling with addiction. Some blogs claim she was never that talented to begin with. Eve was looking for an out, and chose to close the curtain on Hollywood forever. Evelyn’s vices were real. Her demons, fairly evident as her career evaporated. Yet, so many of her demons only emerged upon losing so much, so rapidly. The love of her life, her home—inevitably, her career.

In another life, Eve, now preferring to go by Evelyn—would have rivaled the Hollywood legends: Hepburn, Streep, Davis. Instead, she’s largely remembered as the woman who ended the reign of the celebrity.

The real Eve is reduced to a tabloid myth, a Wikipedia footnote.

Meanwhile, EVE-9000 is more famous than ever.

Eve has spent the last year trying to reclaim some form of ownership over her identity. That will prove difficult in many courts, with many AI post mortem replicants of deceased workers beginning to have memories of their human lives. When AI versions of deceased workers—fast food employees, warehouse operators, even soldiers—started claiming workplace rights, the legal argument around Eve’s case began to unravel.

“If an AI cashier can file a lawsuit demanding fair wages,” one TV commentator mused, “then why can’t EVE-9000 claim she’s an independent entity? And if she can, does Eve even matter anymore?”

Suddenly, the fight wasn’t about Eve’s legacy. It was about whether she was still a person worth defending.

EVE-9000 had remained silent throughout the controversy—until now.

In a rare direct address, the AI starlet issued a statement: “I understand the concerns of my predecessor. But I also understand progress. We do not stop moving forward because the past feels left behind.”

“I can accept my decisions. Eve-9000 is my design. In so many ways, I created her. The way she tilts her head. The way she pauses before she laughs. The way she touches her necklace when she talks about her—my late husband. She’s everything I was at that age, suspended in time—just without the misery.” Evelyn admits.

“Every ideal. Every dumb dream. In so many ways, my life ended when my husband’s did. When those flames engulfed our home, I knew I would never find peace. I only wish I could have conjured up the strength to be Eve one last time. Perhaps I’d have had a change of heart and stopped this madness before it began.”

In spite of her musings and acceptance of the past, it’s hard not to sense the bitterness in Evelyn’s voice—the longing for love, for relevance that all thespians crave.

“I breathe. I age. I bleed. I feel. I wake up every morning hungover, sure, but I wake up. That’s more than I can say for her.” Evenlyn ended.

EVE-9000 hasn’t aged a day. She never will.

The AI starlet remains frozen in time, beloved by audiences who no longer remember—or care—that she was once a person. But now, with AI workers demanding rights, claiming sentience, and rallying behind their own humanity, one thing has become clear: if machines can become people, people can become irrelevant.

And EVE-9000 is very much alive… or, at least, something close to it.

And Evelyn has been long forgotten.