In an industry where a woman’s age can be a liability, more and more actresses are speaking out about the realities of what we once called “the change of life.”
In an industry where a woman’s age can be a liability, more and more actresses are speaking out about the realities of what we once called “the change of life.”
1
Gwyneth Paltrow
The actress and Goop founder has gone beyond just talking about her experience with menopause. She’s ready to redefine it. Speaking in a Goop video she posted on her Instagram in November 2018, she said: “I think when you get into perimenopause, you notice a lot of changes. I can feel the hormonal changes happening, the sweating, the moods — you know you’re just like all of a sudden furious for no reason. I think menopause gets a really bad rap and needs a bit of rebranding. I remember when my mother went through menopause, and it was, like, such a big deal and there was grief around it for her and all of these emotions,” Paltrow recalled. “I don’t think we have in our society a great example of an aspirational menopausal woman.”Related: 12 Women Over Age 60 Who Inspire Wellness and Living Your Best Life
2
Belinda Carlisle
The frontwoman of the ’80s pop group the Go-Go’s was not keeping her lips sealed when she spoke to the Home & Family show on the Hallmark Channel about her experience with difficult menopausal symptoms. “The worst thing for me was the hot flashes, which started in the beginning not being so bad, then it just got to be debilitating, and I would carry a change of clothes in the car,” Carlisle said. “I would watch my friends go through it and I thought, ‘Oh god, I hope I don’t have to suffer like that.”
3
Cynthia Nixon
Mike Pont/Getty ImagesThe actress and political activist opened up about her experience with menopause, sharing that she and wife Christine Marinoni are “going through the menopause together.” In an interview published in 2017 by the Daily Telegraph’s Stella magazine, she spoke about how “freeing” it is to go through menopause, and what it’s been like to experience it at the same time as her partner. “The freedom that comes from no longer being fertile is huge,” she said.
4
Gillian Anderson
When the X-Files actress was dealing with the hormonal transition at age 46 in 2017, she wasn’t at all sure what was happening to her. “It was at the point that I felt like my life was falling apart around me that I started to ask what could be going on internally, and friends suggested it might be hormonal,” she recalled in an interview published in March 2017 by Lenny Letter, ahead of the release of her book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere. “I was used to being able to balance a lot of things, and all of a sudden I felt like I could handle nothing. I felt completely overwhelmed,” says the actress who portrays a sex therapist in the Netflix series Sex Education. “How wonderful would it be if we could get to a place where we are able to have these conversations openly and without shame,” Anderson says. “Admit, freely, that this is what’s going on. So we don’t feel like we’re going mad or insane or alone in any of the symptoms we are having.”
5
Angelina Jolie
In March 2015, the actress and activist wrote in The New York Times that she had chosen to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed because of genetically being at high risk for ovarian cancer. (She also opted for a preventive double mastectomy in 2013 because she carries the BRCA1 gene linked to breast cancer.) The procedure threw her into premature menopause, but Jolie was unwavering about her decision. “Regardless of the hormone replacements I’m taking, I am now in menopause. I will not be able to have any more children, and I expect some physical changes. But I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life. It is nothing to be feared.”And when she spoke to the Daily Telegraph in an interview in November 2015, she’d had no change of heart. “I actually love being in menopause,” she said. “I haven’t had a terrible reaction to it, so I’m very fortunate. I feel older, and I feel settled being older. I feel happy that I’ve grown up. I don’t want to be young again.”
6
Bette Midler
The Divine Miss M. went no-holds-barred when talking to Oprah Winfrey about her journey to menopause and how women are treated as they get older. “I did have night sweats and hot flashes at first. Then I did this soy and primrose oil thing, which helped tremendously,” Midler said. “I don’t suggest that anyone obsess over menopause or aging. Still, it is true that in this culture, they throw you out when you get older. I see it all the time, especially in my business. At my age, you’re playing somebody’s mother — and there aren’t even a lot of those roles!”
Kim Cattrall
In 2014, the Sex and the City actress partnered with Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company that makes prescription menopause treatments, to raise awareness about the life change that happens to an estimated 6,000 women every single day. As an entertainer, she had to pretend she had hot flashes on screen before she ever dealt with them in real life, and she thought that experience had prepared for menopause. But her reality was different than what she expected. “I realized I still had questions. But the more I learned and listened to what my body was telling me, the more I relaxed, adjusted, and realized I could manage this by working closely with my doctor,” Cattrall said in a press release.
8
Wendy Williams
Sometimes the menopausal symptoms aren’t even the root of the health problem. The talk show host took a hiatus from her self-titled show in early 2018 to battle the thyroid problems she developed from the Graves’ disease she was battling in the middle of her menopause journey. Speaking in March 2018 to People magazine, she said that she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease nearly 20 years ago, but neglecting a routine endocrinology appointment created a hormone imbalance that was causing high blood pressure and mood swings. She went on to say, “With the menopause, I wasn’t pointing a finger to any particular thing. I was just feeling like ‘All right … this is I guess how it’s supposed to be.’ I feel 100 percent better than I was a few months ago. I had a storm going in my body, is the best way I can explain it,” says Williams.
9
Cheryl Hines
Emmy-nominated comedic actress Cheryl Hines has definitely not been curbing her enthusiasm for starting a conversation about painful sex after menopause, often due to vaginal dryness and lack of estrogen. As the paid spokeswomen for Painfully Awkward Conversations, a campaign sponsored by the makers of medicine for sexual function and menopause-related issues, she urges women to address the issue with their healthcare providers — because there is treatment — and to talk to other women for support.“It is helpful to talk about it with your friends, so you know other people are dealing with it. The reason a lot of women don’t talk to their healthcare providers is that they think they are alone with this,” says Hines.
