Naomi Watts has said she was told she would never work again if she admitted to being in menopause.
The King Kong star recalled how she was warned against revealing that she was menopausal due to the stigma older women face in Hollywood.
Watts, 54, opened about her experiences of menopause, including changes to her sex life and libido, in her frank new book Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known about Menopause.
In an extract published by The Times, Watts said that she was informed that she was “close to menopause” by a doctor when she was 36 years old – which she called “early menopause”. According to the NHS, most women in the UK experience menopause between the ages of 45 and 55.
Watts said that she had long rejected the prospect of publishing a book on the subject.
“My fear was too great,” she wrote. “Besides, I still knew nothing – just that it was fast approaching and I was s*** scared.”
Speaking about the ramifications she would face in Hollywood as a result of speaking out, Watts said: “I’d been warned ever since I started acting that calling attention to your age – when that age was not 23 or younger – would be career suicide.
“I was told I would never work again if I admitted to being menopausal, or even perimenopausal. Hollywood’s lovely term for such women was ‘unf***able’.”
Perimenopause is when the body starts the transition into menopause.
The actor decided to write the book after coming to the realisation that there “is nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she wants”.
“All good relationships at work and at home – and at the doctor’s office – require communication,” she said.
“We can discuss without shame the details of menopause – how to navigate it, what the symptoms could be, and not just, ‘Oh, you might feel warm at some point,’ but the gory details.”
Watts went on to list the symptoms of menopause that shocked her, writing: “I didn’t know my skin would get so dry, or that urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal issues would become commonplace, or that there was such a long list of other issues connected to the menopausal transition.
“I was craving information on menopause, and certainly no one in Hollywood was breathing a word about it. We were all behaving as if between the seductress years and the grandmother roles, women just… I don’t know, vanished?”
Elsewhere in the book, in a discussion about her changing libido, Watts recalled filming a sex scene with the actor Billy Crudup so steamy that it sparked their relationship. They got married in 2023.
Watts said she hopes that her book will raise awareness around menopause and help women get better treatment.
In 2022, she founded a company called Stripes Beauty in order to address the “various practical needs of women my age”. Products that are sold include a lubricant “play oil” for sex and an intensive skin moisturiser.
Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known about Menopause by Naomi Watts is published on 23 January.
