Gwyneth Paltrow Gets Honest About Aging: “What Happens to Your Identity When You’re Not Beautiful?”
Gwyneth Paltrow’s polarizing candor and approach to wellness may not be for everyone, but there’s no denying it: She’s a harbinger of change for discourse around women’s health.
Taking a no-holds-barred approach to taboo subjects, the Oscar-winning actress recently opened up about experiencing perimenopause and her hopes to reshape the narratives around it. Now she’s getting more frank than ever about aging, musing about the feminine beauty ideal and how it’s inherently fraught for women as they age.
In the debut episode of Goop’s new podcast, The Beauty Closet, Paltrow spoke openly about how being celebrated for her appearance has been something of a Catch-22. “I’ve always felt so funny about my looks,” explained the 46-year-old. “I think that it’s very rare to think that you’re a beautiful person, and so, I feel like every other woman, like I don’t see that when I look in the mirror.”
She continued, “I think for me it’s more internally feeling.... You know, as I go on in life, and I feel more and more myself and less judgmental about myself, my values become clearer to me. I can be in integrity all the time, which was much harder when you’re a younger woman, and you’re trying to please and juggling all this stuff.”
Paltrow also acknowledges the social shifts and internal struggles catalyzed by the natural bodily changes that come with aging. “When you come to age, if you have this broad identity as that, what does it mean to get wrinkles and get closer to menopause? And all these things, and it’s like, what happens to your identity as a woman if you’re not f***kable and beautiful?”
Asking tough questions about aging while being transparent about her personal journey under the magnifying glass of Hollywood scrutiny, Paltrow continues to be a candid voice around wellness, both physical and emotional. Just as powerfully, she underlines that, for her, there’s at least one silver lining: “Luckily, what’s happening at the same time in parallel [with aging]...you just start to like yourself.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
