All around us we as women hear the message the ageing is something we should try and fight for as long as we can, as if it’s something we can control and avoid at all cost.
However, ageing is a natural part of life and these celebrities know embracing it can actually be empowering.
“I’m baffled that anyone might not think women get more beautiful as they get older. Confidence comes with age, and looking beautiful comes from the confidence someone has in themselves,” Kate Winslet told Net-a-Porter.
“What’s released me most from the fear of aging is self-awareness,” Viola Davis said in InStyle magazine. “I’ve never determined my value based on my looks or anything physical. I’ve been through a lot in life, and what has gotten me through is strength of character and faith.”
“The best thing about being over 70 is being over 70,” Mirren told AARP The Magazine. “Certainly when I was 45, the idea of being 70 was like ‘Arghhh!’ but you only have two options in life: Die young or get old. There is nothing else. The idea of dying young when you’re 25 is kind of cool – a bit romantic, like James Dean. But then you realize that life is too much fun to do that.”
“I don’t think of getting older as looking better or worse, it’s just different. You change, and that’s okay. Life is about change,” Heidi Klum told Self.
“There is this pressure in Hollywood to be ageless,” Jennifer Aniston told Elle. “I think what I have been witness to, is seeing women trying to stay ageless with what they are doing to themselves. I am grateful to learn from their mistakes, because I am not injecting s–t into my face… I see them and my heart breaks. I think, ‘Oh god if you only know how much older you look’.”
“I feel older, and I feel settled being older. I feel happy that I’ve grown up,” Angelia Jolie told The Cut when talking about menopause. “I don’t want to be young again.”
“I was putting [my son Louis] to bed and told him that even when I’m old and grey and more wrinkly than I am now, I’ll still love him and want to tuck him in. And he asked me why I have wrinkles, and I said, ‘Well, I hope some of them are from laughing so much’,” Sandra Bullock told People magazine.
“I’m actually happier with my body now… because the body I have now is the body I’ve worked for. I have a better relationship with it. From a purely aesthetic point of view, my body was better when I was 22, 23. But I didn’t enjoy it. I was too busy comparing it to everyone else’s,” Cindy Crawford told Popsugar
“Women don’t allow other women to age gracefully. And we don’t give ourselves permission to age gracefully,” Cameron Diaz said during an interview with Oprah on OWN. “We don’t honour the journey and who we are and how much we have to offer. It’s almost as if we have failed if we don’t remain 25 for the rest of our lives. Like we are failures. It is a personal failure. Like, our fault that at 40 years old that I don’t still look like I’m 25. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I apologise I wasn’t able to defy nature’.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. It’s like the older I get, the better I get. Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart. If my breasts fall down to the floor and everything starts to sag, becoming hideous and gross, I won’t worry,” Drew Barrymore told Women’s Weekly
“There’s no such thing is ageing, but maturing and knowledge. It’s beautiful, I call that beauty,” Celine Dion told OK! Magazine.
“How could I be afraid of something so natural? Ageing is part of our life, we can’t avoid that,” Charlize Theron told Vanity Fair Italy. “A part of me is really grateful for all the things that have happened since I started ageing, now I’m much wiser than 20 years ago. A wrinkle is nothing compared to that.”
“I’m not interested in being perfect when I’m older. I’m interested in having a narrative. It’s the narrative that’s really the most beautiful thing about women,” said Jodie Foster.
“Ageing gracefully is all about being at peace with the natural progression of life,” Noami told The Sunday Telegraph.
