What Halle Berry, Stacy London, Oprah Winfrey and More Celebrities Have Said About Menopause and Candid Conversations About Women’s Health
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Menopause is a stage of life so many people go through, and yet, the education behind it hasn’t been discussed broadly. Research is lacking so much that in December 2023 Congresswomen Yvette Clarke of New York and Debbie Lesko of Arizona, in collaboration with nonprofit Let’s Talk Menopause, presented the Menopause Research and Equity Act to Congress.
The bill would “require the director of the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the results and status of completed and ongoing research related to menopause, perimenopause or mid-life women’s health, to conduct and support additional such research and for other purposes.”
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Celebrities and public figures like Halle Berry, who recently opened up about her experiences with menopause, have offered candid and insightful details about what their bodies endured and how their respective lives changed.
Ahead, see what Barry, Stacy London and more public figures have said about their experiences with menopause.
Katie Couric
“You’re going through a life change, and there’s no turning back,” Couric told Good Housekeeping in 2012. “I think emotionally and psychologically it’s weird to feel like, ‘Gosh, my childbearing years are over.’” At the time, Couric also said she wants “to help women get the latest information; it’s one of those things people don’t talk about, and doctors don’t have time to really work with women…I mean, let’s talk about this stuff.”
Oprah Winfrey
“So many women I’ve talked to see menopause as a blessing,” Winfrey said in 2019, via Oprah Daily. “I’ve discovered that this is your moment to reinvent yourself after years of focusing on the needs of everyone else.”
Halle Berry
“First of all, my ego told me that I was going to skip [perimenopause],” Halle Berry said on Monday at A Day of Unreasonable Conversation. “I’m in great shape. I’m healthy. I managed to get myself off of insulin and manage my diabetes since I’m 20 years old. So that makes one think, ‘Oh, I can handle menopause. I’m going to skip that whole thing.’ I was so uneducated about it at that time.”
“I feel like I have razor blades in my vagina. I run to my gynecologist and I say, ‘Oh my God, what’s happening?’ It was terrible. He said, ‘You have the worst case of herpes I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Herpes? I don’t have herpes.’”
“I realize after the fact, that is a symptom of perimenopause. My doctor had no knowledge and didn’t prepare me. That’s when I knew, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to use my platform. I have to use all of who I am, and I have to start making a change and a difference for other women.’”
Shania Twain
“Menopause taught me to quickly say, ‘You know, it may only get worse. So just love yourself now. Just get over your insecurities — they’re standing in your way. And fear is standing in your way,’” Shania Twain told the New York Post in 2023.
Michelle Obama
“I’m dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and, literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high. Then, everything started melting and I thought, ‘Well this is crazy, I can’t do this,’” Michelle Obama said of her experience on a podcast in 2020. “What a woman’s body is taking her through is important information,” she said. “It’s an important thing to take up space in a society, because half of us are going through this but we’re living like it’s not happening.”
Stacy London
“Having spent years in the styling industry, I recognized the need for a culture that openly discusses midlife topics without taboo,” Stacy London told WWD. “Through my PinterestTV show, ‘Midlife Magic,’ I will speak to female founders and highlight the products revolutionizing the discourse surrounding menopause and health.”
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