Naomi Watts Is Breaking Hollywood’s Last Taboo—Menopause

In a candid conversation with bestselling author Gabby Bernstein on this week’s episode of Dear Gabby, Academy Award-nominated actress Naomi Watts opens up about her new book and recalls the stark warning she received in her early thirties after her breakthrough role in Mulholland Drive: work as much as possible, because by 40, she’d be “unfuckable”—Hollywood’s brutal stance on women past their reproductive years.

Today, at 56, Watts is leading a different conversation, one that challenges society’s attitudes toward aging women. “Look at the lineup of women driving stories this year,” she says, pointing to the success of peers like Nicole Kidman and Pamela Anderson and the industry’s shifting landscape.

Her new book, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause, arrives at a pivotal moment when women’s health issues are increasingly part of public discourse. Yet Watts reveals she suffered in silence for years, experiencing severe perimenopausal symptoms while trying to maintain her career and start a family through IVF in her late thirties.

“I went through a good amount of time by myself feeling at sea, uneducated, not having a community, not having been understood by doctors, or not consistently, and feeling very scared,” Watts reveals to Bernstein.

The conversation unveils a broader crisis in women’s healthcare: many women experience perimenopausal symptoms as early as their thirties without realizing it. “My story is so similar to yours,” says Bernstein, who discovered she was going through perimenopause during fertility treatments at 35.

Watts advocates for breaking the silence around menopause, even with children. When her own kids misunderstood her symptoms, she used it as an opportunity for education. “The more we bring everyone in the household into this conversation, the easier it’s going to go for all of us,” she explains.

Bernstein shares how she explained her condition to her six-year-old son: “Mommy’s brain isn’t broken, but mommy’s been having hormonal upheavals and it’s creating chaos in her brain. But the good news is mommy got help.”

Both women discuss the transformative effects of proper hormone replacement therapy (HRT). “I want to have a sex drive and I haven’t had a sex drive for so long,” Bernstein candidly shares. “And then all of a sudden to have those hormones back in my body and be like, wow, you know, whoa, I’m a woman again.”

Watts, who also founded the menopause-focused beauty brand Stripes, emphasizes that with proper medical support and HRT, menopause can mark a beginning rather than an end. “If I could simplify the messaging in the book, it’s really that this is not the end. There’s so much more life ahead of us… We just have to get a little organized and educated.”

For younger women approaching this life stage, Watts offers her “five T’s”: “Find your teachers… Honor timelines or look at them, but don’t panic about them… Find your tribe, your truth with yourself, with those around you and be tender.”

Listen to their full conversation here.