Naomi Watts, new ambassador for positive menopause

What if Naomi Watts became the Gwyneth Paltrow of positive menopause? Since the beginning of October 2022 – month dedicated to breast cancer but also to menopause – the star, starring in the Netflix series The Watcher, continues to communicate with posts and reels about her cosmetics brand Stripes, developed with Onda Beauty.

But this new brand is not meaningless and is inspired by the existence of Naomi Watts. At 36, while the Hollywood star was trying to get pregnant, she was diagnosed with perimenopause. A period of transition in a woman’s life that usually occurs a few years before the age of fifty. The actress is then faced with an early menopause and explains on her Instagram account how she had to face, “alone, ashamed and anxious”, physical and psychological symptoms difficult to live with, even as she tried to enlarge. his family.

“During my acting career, I’ve gone through tsunamis and come face to face with King Kong. But nothing prepared me for an early menopause”, she wrote on an Instagram post, at the launch of her brand.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. My skin was dry and itchy. My hormones were upside down. I remember feeling so confused and alone, like I had no control over my own body.”

“Feeling like a failure”

During a conference in New York on October 14, 2022, broadcast by People, Naomi Watts once again reflected on her early menopause: “At 36, I found myself perimenopausal, a word I didn’t even know, as I began to want to start a family. I completely freaked out, felt very alone, felt like a failure, wasted, and had absolutely no idea what to do,” she shared. “There was no one to talk to, no information available on the subject. And when I went to see the doctor, he just said, ‘You’re not going to get pregnant, your blood test shows you’re close to menopause.’ I was totally freaked out.”

While she is denied the option of IVF due to her perimenopause, the interpreter of the thriller mummy (available on Amazon Prime Video), then in a relationship with actor Liev Schreiber, finally succeeded in giving birth to two children. However, the two pregnancies have consequences on her body: “After my second child, I suffered from severe night sweats, hot flashes, and I was like: ‘This is horrible’.”



Talk more freely about menopause

Naomi Watts then seeks help among those around her, but her friends, visibly embarrassed, seem not to want to talk about the subject. Today, years later, the radiant 54-year-old star embodies a positive, uninhibited menopause. During the presentations of her brand Stripes, which promises to pamper the entire body, from the scalp to the vagina (From scalp to vag), she does not hesitate to dialogue with menopausal women who share their experiences and thus create a strong community. Guest on The Drew Barrymore Show, October 15, 2022, Naomi Watts once again showed her enthusiasm by performing a facial massage for menopausal skin on the face of the grateful Drew Barrymore, visibly uninhibited on the subject.

Even if the speech of the interpreter of the series Gypsy is tinged with marketing, listening to women express themselves on the menopause helps to free speech and inscribes the subject in the public debate. Naomi Watts’ goal of helping women no longer go through menopause alone and ending “stigma, shame and confusion” seems already well in hand. To see if it does not run out of steam over time.

Want to hear more info on the subject? In October 2021, we dedicated an episode of our podcast Femina Tout va bien to how to better live the menopause. In this episode, Dr. Anna Surbone, head of clinic for the Fertility Medicine and Endocrinology-Gynecology Unit at the CHUV in Lausanne, discusses the most common physiological and mental signs, before giving us lots of advice. and leads, to help us better live this period. Good listening!

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Naomi Watts, new ambassador for positive menopause