Halle Berry’s Perimenopause Was Misdiagnosed As Herpes: ‘My Doctor Had No Knowledge And Didn’t Prepare Me’

Halle Berry recently sat down with First Lady Jill Biden to discuss all things menopause.

On March 25, Propper Daley, an organization that specializes in advocating for social impact, hosted the fourth annual A Day of Unreasonable Conversation summit — an invite-only event that puts various industry leaders, influencers and celebrities from different backgrounds in the same room with writers, artists, producers and executives.

The goal is to have honest conversations surrounding politics, race, education, climate change, health and labor to help organic storytelling at the core of the film and TV industry, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Special guests included Kerry Washington, Paris Hilton, Michelle Norris, Dr. Yusef Salaam and Halle Berry.

Berry participated in the women’s health segment of the summit where the topic focused on the experiences of menopausal women and how it’s often portrayed in stories. The areas of discussion stemmed from President Joe Biden‘s recent executive order to increase research in women’s health studies. Now, Berry, who is 57, is using her platform to spark conversations about midlife women with the hopes that menopause is no longer perceived as a taboo topic.

During her fireside chat with Jill Biden, she opened up about how she learned she was experiencing perimenopause.

“First of all, my ego told me that I was going to skip it — I’m very safe, I’m healthy, I managed to get myself off of insulin and manage my diabetes since I’m 20 years old,” she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

And so when Berry “finally [met] the man of my dreams,” the fact that her sex drive was so high caught her off guard. But after noticing grueling pain after sexual intercourse, Berry scheduled a doctor’s appointment and was told she had herpes. However, Berry and Hunt’s STD testing debunked that either of them had herpes. Instead, it was “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,'” she said.

Berry ended the session by asking the audience to “help us change the way culture views women at this stage of our lives.”

She said, “We’re not exactly at the end. We’re sitting up here, two women who are clearly down the path of life, we are not done. We’re just getting started in our next act.”