Hollywood A-lister Naomi Watts has just released a memoir about menopause and she’s busy doing the media rounds and appearing on high-profile television shows, such as The Drew Barrymore Show.
The 56-year old Australian actor’s book Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause has been described by one reviewer as a “catalogue of woe [about menopause]…combined with the lamest advice you’ll ever read,” but she’s been garnering supporters online, with her candid accounts about the realities of menpause while she was dating her now-husband Billy Crudup.
In her description of their first sexual encounter together, Watts revealed that she had to visit the bathroom before they began being physical in order to remove the HRT (hormone replacement therapy) skin patches she had attached to her body.
“I worried that if he saw it he would realise it meant I was menopausal [and] no longer a vital, fertile human being,” she writes in the book.
On The Drew Barrymore Show, Watts explained that she took a long time in the bathroom because the adhesive on the patches were ”very sticky” and “takes ages to get off…I was scratching away…”
“In fact, my first doctor that told me to use the patch told me to just use car oil,” she said.
“I was in there too long and then came out sort of like that, frantic, and [Billy] said, ‘Are you okay? Are you not in the mood?'” she recounted, before reenacting what she’d said to Crudup, which was that she was in menopause and she was getting treatment.
“I’m old, should I just leave?” she said, evoking a wave of laughter from the audience. “I was trying my best to apologise and I was shrinking.”
Watts went on to describe Crudup’s response, which, according to her, went something like this: “What is this? We’re the same age, this is science. How can I help?” — to which the audience melted into a collective moan of “Awwww”s.
Later on, the actor elaborated on her motivation for opening up about menopause.
“Truth can be so liberating,” she said. “People fear that when they get to this point that the sex is gonna be over, and for some it’s true that your libido goes down. You can get support for things like that.”
This is not the first time Watts has spoken publicly about menopause. In October 2022, she founded her own menopause beauty and wellness brand, Stripes Beauty, and has since been its Chief Creative Officer. On its website, Watts said she created the company because women “deserve support, solutions, and the space to figure it all out. Because while menopause may be part of midlife, midlife is a lot more than just menopause.”
“I would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. My skin was dry and itchy. My hormones were all over the place. I remember feeling so confused and alone, like I didn’t have control over my own body.”
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Watts has since revealed that she was diagnosed with perimenopause in her mid-30s, when she and her then-partner, Liev Schreiber were trying to start a family.
“That’s when I started to hear from my doctor that my hormones were changing at quite a drastic level, and it put me into such a terrible panic,” she recently recounted to Today.
“We’re at that point in time where we should feel proud of our cumulative experiences,” Watts added. “We’ve been through ups and downs, we’ve recovered, we’re wiser for that, we’re stronger, we should embrace this moment in our lives in a positive way, as if we’ve earned this moment — we’ve earned our stripes.”
In her book, she discusses the pressure of women “to be all things to all people can be overwhelming,” and how “menopause can add an extra layer of stress.”
Watts is not the only Hollywood star to have spoken publicly about menopause. Shania Twain, Salma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michelle Obama have all gone on the record about their own experiences of perimenopause and menopause. Last year, Oscar winning actor Halle Berry revealed how a herpes misdiagnosis prompted her to use her fame to help other women transitioning through menopause. Since then, she has appeared on several news networks, hoping to normalise conversations around the condition.
In May last year, the 58-year old actor joined a group of bipartisan senators outside the U.S. Capitol to support legislation that would pledge US$275 million toward research and education around menopause, including more spending on hormone therapy research.
“I’m in menopause, OK!?” Berry raged. “The shame has to be taken out of menopause. We have to talk about this very normal part of our life that happens. Our doctors can’t even say the word to us, let alone walk us through the journey.”