Halle Berry has previously been vocal about her experience with perimenopause, and now the actress is demanding more for women. In a new interview with Marie Claire, Berry spoke about ending the stigma that comes along with menopause.
“We’ve been expected to get these babies out and then who cares what happens to us. Y’all just get through it the best way you can,” she said. “The fighter in me said, ‘Hell no, we deserve better!’ We are half this population. Those kids are here because we bring them here. You don’t get to forget us now for the second half of our journey. We were valuable then and we’re valuable now.”
Halle Berry Posing In Black Pants White Button-Down Shirt at Pendulum Probiotics panel at IFM’s Annual Functional Medicine Conference May 31, 2024
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Despite the negative connotation that society places on menopause, Berry said she sees the stage as a new beginning. “It’s an exciting time for a rebirth,” she continued. “It’s not the time to pack it up. It’s the time to ask, ‘Now that I’m free, what can I do?'”
Halle Berry Soft Smile Posing Hand on Hip Red Silk Dress at Lionsgate Exclusive Presentation of its Upcoming Slate during CinemaCon April 10, 2024
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Berry sees aging as a privilege, saying that the wisdom she has gained over the years has helped her to care less about trivial things.
“I’m now usually one of the oldest people in every room I walk in and that’s a good feeling,” she explained. “I don’t have to be the dancing bear. I don’t have to worry about appeasing everybody in the room, or care about everybody else’s egos, or their insecurities, or give them what they’re wanting from me if it’s not what I’m wanting to give them. My daughter says, ‘Don’t ask mom, because she’s got no fucks to give. Don’t ask her unless you want the answer for real.’”
Thanks to her nutrition and fitness journey, Berry added that, at 58, she feels “better and stronger than I did when I was in my 20s,” she said. “I feel like I’m now at the pinnacle.”
“Age is just a number that they stick on us at birth,” she added. “As women, we get defined by it way more than men do and sometimes it can debilitate us. It can trick us into thinking what we’re supposed to do. We have to kick that in the face and say, ‘No, I’m going to do what I can do as long as I feel good doing it!’ And that will be whatever I want it to be. I get to define that.”