Bobbi Brown Opens Up About Losing Her Brand and Starting Over at 60: ‘I Was Pissed Off’

If you’ve ever felt stuck, unsure of what you want to do with your life, or like you’re one Instagram wellness post away from a complete identity crisis—Bobbi Brown gets it. The 68-year-old beauty icon behind two major brands has been through the highest highs (Vogue covers, a massive Estée Lauder deal) and the lowest lows (getting pushed out of the company she built). 

On The Art of Being Well, Brown sits down with Dr. Will Cole to talk about those in-between moments—the ones that don’t come with a press tour or a neat narrative. What unfolds is the perspective you earn by living through enough chapters to know that clarity doesn’t always arrive on schedule.

Below are the highlights, adapted for The Art of Being Well.

Bobbi Brown Opens Up About Losing Her Brand and Starting Over at 60

You’ve written a ton of beauty books—what made you write ‘Still Bobby’ now, and what did you want it to be?

“I have. I’ve written mostly beauty books, makeup and beauty books. My last book before this was Beauty from the Inside Out, which was my journey into wellness, which we’ll get to. But this book is called Still Bobby. And it didn’t start out to be a memoir. I was reached by an agent that said, ‘You’ve got to write a book because so many things you put out there are so helpful to so many people and you do it kind of organically. You have to write a book.’

And I’m like, ‘I’m not ready for a memoir.’ She says, ‘It doesn’t have to be a memoir.’ And then you start the project, and I went back to my grandparents, my parents, who I am, where I came from, all my experiences in the middle, and then where I am now, which is the best place I’ve been so far.”

Take us back—when did beauty first click for you, and what did your mom say that changed everything?

“I’ve always been interested in beauty. I used to watch in amazement my mother get ready to go out and she was really glamorous and beautiful and I never felt I was pretty or glamorous. I always wanted to be and I would always play with her makeup. And whenever I’d put it on, I made sure it didn’t look like I was wearing makeup. That was even my style back then. And after my second [year of] college, I came home and told my mom I wanted to drop out. And she said, ‘You can’t.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean you have to graduate?’ [because] she never did. I said, ‘But mom, it’s really boring and I don’t know what I want to do.’

She said, ‘Forget what you think you need to do to make money. What would you do if it was your birthday and I had a magic wand, you could do anything you want.’ I could have said anything, right? I could have said, go to Paris, you know, eat chocolate chip cookies all day in bed. I could have said anything. I said, ‘I want to go to the department store and play with makeup.’ She said, ‘Why don’t you be a makeup artist?’”

When did it go from ‘I’m a makeup artist’ to ‘oh…this is a brand’? What was the moment?

“Well, so I started working right away. You know, little teeny things, they led to more things and probably by the time I was in New York for 10 years and I was around 29, 30, I was at the top of my game. I was doing Vogue covers. I was doing fashion shows. I was traveling a lot. But I also found the man of my dreams…

…And I didn’t want to travel the globe anymore and be this fabulous fashion makeup artist. So we moved to New Jersey and I commuted and I got pregnant and I just didn’t want to do what I was doing. And I met a chemist and had an idea for a lipstick. So before there was a name called Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, there [were] lipsticks that I was selling out of my backpack basically in the park and at shoots and people would buy them…One day I met a really nice woman in New York at a party…She said, ‘I’m a cosmetics buyer at Bergdorf Goodman.’ I said, ‘Oh, I have a line of lipsticks.’ So, I didn’t realize I just pitched her right there in her kitchen and she eventually took the lipsticks and we opened at Bergdorf and that’s when things got real.”

What made you say yes to Estée Lauder—and how big did that decision end up being?

“So we launched at Burgdorf Goodman Bobbi Brown Cosmetics February of 1991. I remember that cuz my baby was 6 months old, my first baby. And in four years we were somehow the number one line at Neiman’s and Burgdorf and that was not I guess a popular thing for Estée Lauder. And we got a call that Leonard wanted to meet us. Leonard Lauder is the son of Este who passed away this year. And I went to his house and met him, fell madly in love with him. And he said to me, ‘What if I tell you we could partner? I’d like to buy you and you could do what you really love, which I know is being a mother, being a wife, and being a creative person, and we could take all the things you don’t like away.’ And you know it sounded pretty good…

…I stayed 22 years which is amazing. I had a 25-year non-compete which we signed because I was 34 years old, 34-35 when we sold the company and my husband said you know the deal’s done you know we agreed on all the terms except there’s this 25-year non-compete they want you to sign. I’d never heard of a non-compete, period. And I started to say 25 years and I was thinking I’m going to be in my 60s. I’m not going to want to work in my 60s. Well, I was 62 when I left the company. Oh, no, I was 59 when I left the company.”

Did you plan on staying that long—and was it a clean break, or did it get messy?

“No, I didn’t plan on staying that long. In the beginning, I had five-year contracts and toward the end, I had two-year contracts because I wasn’t sure…And over the years, it got tougher and tougher and tougher, and I wasn’t ready to pull the plug. And I honestly don’t think I’d ever have pulled the plug. You know, they pulled the plug. So, you know, it was whether I quit or got fired…they canceled my work contract, which to me is getting fired. They wanted me to stay as the silent face of the brand. There’s nothing silent about me…

…It did not end on great terms…it was not pretty…When I left, trust me, there was a lot of PR and crisis PR standing by and all of these things…It took four months after this happened for them to get the message out to the wires and it just basically said that I was moving on. And that’s what the world saw. And you know…it was a gift, you know, in hindsight. And I never wanted to sound like I was bitter, angry, even though I was. I was pissed off, I was hurt…”

When that chapter ended—what did you do first, and what actually helped you move forward?

“Well, the first couple days I used tequila, so that was fine. My friends came over from next door and we drank and they listened to me and all that stuff. And then I just said, ‘Okay, enough.’ And I started reaching out to people that I knew that I never had time to talk to and see. I would go in the city and I would have breakfast and lunches and it was like an invigorating time for me because I had been stuck in this corporate tower for 20 years. So I’m like, wow, there’s a whole world out there…

…And I would have many hours during the day where I would be sad, angry, and then I would try to push through it. What I did is I exercised. I moved my body. I walked a lot. I picked up the phone, called people, talked to people. And I’m not a shrink person, but I discovered a life coach. A friend of mine who is my yoga instructor turned life coach said, ‘I’m coming over to give you a session.’ And I loved it so much that I started doing work with him.”

With so much wellness advice everywhere, how do you know what to listen to now?

“All you guys—and I’m gonna point my finger at you [Dr. Cole]—always telling us what we should do on that little stupid like Instagram. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I have to do that!’ And then someone else says, ‘No, you have to do this.’ And all of a sudden, my mind is like, what the hell? And so now I kind of do what makes the most sense to me. It’s not always perfect, but I eat for what I want and the amount I want and I’m always experimenting…

… I have experiences where I’d go to Brooklyn with my kids who are big foodies and I’d be the most restrictive eater and feeling miserable or on a cleanse or do whatever it was, and I’m like, I missed the whole experience. And finally I said enough.” 

For the full conversation, tune into The Art of Being Well with Dr. Will Cole, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

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