Hollywood actress Naomi Watts was warned her career would be over if she revealed she was going through menopause.
The British-born star, who started experiencing symptoms at the age of 36, was told that even drawing attention to her age would be “career suicide.”
But now, at the age of 56, Ms Watts has spoken about her experiences with menopause in a new book aimed at challenging the stigma faced by older women in Hollywood.
The King Kong actress writes in Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Know About Menopause: “I was told I would never work again if I admitted I was in menopause, or even perimenopause.
‘Hollywood’s fancy term for such women was ‘unf***able’. Ever since I started acting, I was warned that drawing attention to your age – if that age wasn’t 23 or younger – would be career suicide.’
It was only after visiting her doctor that Ms Watts discovered that the hot flashes and night sweats she had been experiencing for years were signs of early menopause.
“It looks like you’re close to menopause,” my doctor said when I was 36. He wondered why I was having so much trouble getting pregnant. I almost fell off the examination table,” she says in the book, an excerpt of which appeared in The Times.
‘”What do you mean?” I said, gasping for air. “Close to menopause? That’s for grandmothers. I’m not even a mother yet. And that’s what I’m here for, by the way, to become a mother. Take it back!”
Naomi Watts attends the 2025 Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton in January 2025
The British-born actress has spoken out about her experiences with menopause in a new book Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause
Watts says: ‘I was told I would never work again if I admitted I was in menopause, or even perimenopause’
Ms Watts decided to write the book after realizing that there was ‘nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she wants’.
Ms Watts added: ‘One of the funniest things that’s happened as a result: random celebrities now regularly text me to tell me they’re going through menopause.
‘It’s like I’m standing behind the confession window or I’m Hollywood’s suffering aunt. I was craving information about menopause, and certainly no one in Hollywood spoke a word about it.
“We all acted like we’d gone through the temptress years and the grandmotherly roles, women had just… I don’t know, disappeared?”