Gwyneth Paltrow Just Opened Up About Aging as a Woman in Hollywood
Gwyneth Paltrow opened up about what it’s like to grow older on a new Goop podcast, The Beauty Closet, explaining that even she hasn’t totally acclimated to the pressure of the spotlight. “I’ve always felt so funny about my looks,” she said, according to People. “I think that it’s very rare to think that you’re a beautiful person, and so, I feel like every other woman—like, I don’t see that when I look in the mirror.”
The fact that Hollywood remains fixated on youth doesn’t help, she added. Despite the fact that Paltrow, 46, still fits well within the industry’s narrow standards of beauty, the actress and entrepreneur shared she’s conscious of aging. “It’s a weird thing to be—I don’t mean in a pejorative way—objectified,” she said. “I think when you come to age…what does it mean to get wrinkles and get closer to menopause, and all these things…. What happens to your identity as a woman if you’re not fuckable and beautiful?” (Of course, that’s not a problem it seems famous men have to deal with.)
But Paltrow didn’t dwell too much on the downsides of growing older, or even on the existential questions the process sometimes poses. Instead, she said, aging has given her more clarity about who she is as a person and the values she considers important.
“You know, as I go on in life and I feel more and more myself and less judgmental about myself, my values become clearer to me,” she said. “I can be in integrity all the time, which was much harder when you’re a younger woman and you’re trying to please and juggling all this stuff.”
Later, she added, “Luckily, what’s happening at the same time in parallel is you just start to like yourself. I think you get to a point where it’s almost like your sort of pulchritude is waning in a way and your inner beauty is, like, really coming out, and so it’s this funny shift that’s happening.”
“It’s like, you feel so good; you know who you are, hopefully; you value the relationships in your life and your work and your contribution to the world,” she said, “But then you’re like, ‘Wow, I have crow’s feet. Damn!'”
Of course, there’s nothing inherently good or bad about crow’s feet, but if their arrival comes with a deeper sense of self, we’re here for it.