‘Crime 101’ Star Halle Berry Opens Up About Embracing Her ‘New Face and Body’ at 60
Halle Berry has spent the past several years steadily building a public platform around aging and women’s health, transforming what began as a personal health scare into an ongoing mission to reshape how society talks about midlife womanhood. That advocacy has only grown louder as she’s continued sharing her own experience navigating menopause openly and publicly.
That mission took center stage once again this month, as Berry sat down for a candid conversation about the physical and emotional realities of getting older. Rather than shying away from questions about her changing appearance, the Oscar winner leaned directly into the topic, framing it as something worth embracing rather than fighting.
Speaking at Create & Cultivate’s “On Her Own Terms: Halle Berry on Menopause, Aging & Women’s Health” panel in Los Angeles on September 20, Berry was asked by moderator Jaclyn Johnson to complete a sentence about what she’s embracing most with age. Her answer landed squarely on her own physical transformation. “My new face and body,” Berry said, before elaborating further on what that acceptance actually looks like day to day.
“It is changing. I look in the mirror every day and I see, ‘Oh God, there’s one thing that wasn’t there last week,’ but what I’m proud of is that I can learn to accept that and not turn myself into a monster with all kinds of things we could do today,” Berry continued during the panel discussion.
Berry’s comments build on a broader personal journey she’s been sharing publicly for several years now. She has previously described being misdiagnosed by her own doctor, who initially mistook her perimenopause symptoms for a severe case of herpes rather than recognizing the early signs of hormonal change she was actually experiencing.
That misdiagnosis became a turning point for Berry, pushing her to launch Respin, a wellness platform focused on midlife women’s health and longevity. She’s also continued pushing for broader policy change, previously rallying support in Congress for the Advancing Menopause Care and Mid-Life Women’s Health Act, a bill aimed at directing funding toward menopause-related research and treatment.
Berry’s latest comments about embracing her physical changes also tie directly into her recent business ventures. Her statement about accepting her “new face and body” came just months after partnering with Joylux to launch Juicy Like a Peach, a vaginal dryness gel that she’s credited with meaningfully improving both her confidence and her sex life.
She’s spoken candidly in the past about how unprepared she was for that specific aspect of menopause, noting that discussing symptoms like vaginal dryness openly helps remove the shame many women feel around the topic. “Look, it happens to more than 60 percent of women as we get older. Everything gets dry! If we talk about it and laugh about it, there’s no more shame or embarrassment,” Berry has previously said regarding the issue.
That willingness to speak plainly about topics traditionally kept private has become something of a signature for Berry as she’s entered this new chapter of her career. Rather than distancing herself from the visible signs of aging, she’s continued positioning herself as a vocal advocate determined to change how culture views women moving through midlife, treating her own changing reflection as something to be proud of rather than something to hide.
What stands out to you most about Halle Berry’s approach to aging and embracing her changing appearance?
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