Brooke Shields is 57 years old and thriving — and she’s done with listening to society’s standards on women and aging. The model and actress opened up to Amy Morin on the Verywell Mind Podcast to explain how comfortable she feels in her own skin in her 50s and why she wants other women to celebrate this season of life.
Shields points out that she’s “been fighting ageism in Hollywood probably since I was about seven” and that feeling sexy “doesn’t have to just be a young person’s reality.” She notes how the entertainment industry treats a woman in her 50s as a “withered, dried-up entity” and that “everything is for younger people, it’s flashy and it’s made fabulous.” But she is done with playing into that narrative. “It wasn’t until I got past 50 where I thought, wait a minute, there’s nobody out there talking to me. They’re overlooking me,” she explained.
Shields believes that women over 50 are “not represented” on-screen enough, especially at a time when the kids have left the nest and moms are focusing on themselves for once. “This is the period of my life that I feel finally much more confident and less complicated, and very clear about what I want and who I am. And that’s only come with years,” she shared. She wants to make sure women “try to find inspiration from people” in their age bracket because this is a time for self-love.
The mom of two wants women to embrace the beauty of this time in their lives because it’s an opportunity to relish in all of their personal accomplishments while taking on new challenges. “When it gets right down to it, you’re only going to be able to find the happiness and the confidence and the peace and the acceptance of your uniqueness inside you, when you start seeing yourself differently,” she advised. “You start making different choices to support that amazing, beautiful, unique, different person, but you have to practice it.”
Before you go, click here to see actresses over 50 who are more successful now than ever.
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