Gwyneth Paltrow gave an interview to the Today Show which we previewed last week. While Gwyneth’s voice is so grating and nasal, I actually enjoyed watching the full interview (which I’m including below). Willie Giest interviewed her in the brick-and-mortar Goop shop in the Hamptons, and Gwyneth had some interesting stuff to say about aging, sexual wellness and more. I forgot that Gwyneth is turning 50 this year! I genuinely thought she was mid-40s but no, we’re all getting so old! Some highlights:
Turning 50 in September: She says she’s “so excited” about turning 50, and “I’m so surprised and delighted that I’m not freaked out about it, because when I was turning 40, I was a mess. And I was so anxious about it, and I had, like, grief, and it felt, like, really scary. And so I thought, oh boy, 50’s gonna feel … ”
Why her 40th was so rough: She chalks her fear of turning 40 in partly to having “a lot going on in my life that I hadn’t resolved yet.”
The grief of aging: “I think I grieved a lot [about] the physical part. I think when you grow up in the culture very much, and [there are] pictures of you everywhere … and you turn 40 [and] people make such a big deal that you think, oh my God, I’m, you know, over the hill. So there’s a kind of grief and letting go of that youth, in a way.”
The joy of aging: She now sees turning 40 as getting an “amazing software upgrade.” She remembers thinking, “this is actually kind of great, and I feel like I can be who I am a little bit more and I have permission. And now I feel like that times a hundred. I just feel, this is who I am, and I really like myself. I really know all of my flaws and I’m really working on them.”
So, she feels great about this big birthday: “I’m so happy to be turning 50. I feel so grateful. I’m so happy that I have my health. I feel so good!”
I know she’s a pill but she’s not wrong about the “grief” of aging? Maybe “grief” isn’t the right word, but people definitely mourn the loss of their younger selves and I’m sure to many people, it does resemble grief. I actually appreciate the women who put a happy face on aging and talk about how getting older is great for this and that reason. It makes me feel better. Of course, I’ve always believed that once you get past your mid-20s, most people just give less of a f–k with each passing year. It’s like all of that drama and anxiety being phased out, year by year. By the time you get to your 50th birthday, you have literally no f–ks to give.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid, screencap courtesy of Today.
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- New York, NY – Academy-Award winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow arrives at ‘Good Morning America’ in New York with a fresh cup of coffee. The stylish star was sporting a bright purple ensemble under a large black coat during the outing. Pictured: Gwyneth Paltrow BACKGRID USA 9 JANUARY 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: JosiahW / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Gwyneth Paltrow is chic in navy and white as she heads off for an appearance on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.’ The founder of wellness brand Goop was there to promote her new healthy cookbook, ‘The Clean Plate: Eat, Reset, Heal.’ Pictured: Gwyneth Paltrow BACKGRID USA 9 JANUARY 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: BlayzenPhotos / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- ** RIGHTS: ONLY UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND ** New York, NY – Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is walking with a friend on Prince Street in Soho, New York. Pictured: Gwyneth Paltrow BACKGRID USA 27 AUGUST 2019 BYLINE MUST READ: Best Image / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Hollywood, CA – Gwyneth Paltrow was seen arriving at the Gucci Fashion show wearing all red. Pictured: Gwyneth Paltrow BACKGRID USA 2 NOVEMBER 2021 BYLINE MUST READ: PeBu / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Celebrities at the Jimmy Kimmel Live! studios Featuring: Gwyneth Paltrow Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 08 Nov 2021 Credit: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages/Cover Images
Where did the time go?
Happy Birthday will be appropriate.
Just enjoy .
I actually appreciate what she has to say here too. I’m on the cusp of my 50th year and still feel young. I am grateful for the years behind but mourn them a little bit too. I hope for many healthy and joy filled years.
@ girl_ninja, I am turning 60 today and I was thrilled with 50 and had a huge birthday weekend!!! Yes, I am one of those women, yet it is for birthday decades only, but I will make if fun for everyone! On my 50th, we all spent the weekend in Houston, stayed at Hotel ZaZa and ate a massive dinner, which had been followed from a day at the Museum of Natural History!! I love birthdays and try to make it special for everyone!!
I am turning 60 today but I am not celebrating for a number of reasons. Firstly, my favorite sister died one year ago today from pancreatic cancer and I am still devastated. She was an incredible woman as well as the best sister a person could ask for. Secondary, I have been sick 19 years, 7 of which was due to not knowing what was wrong with me, 2 wrong surgeries, and I figured out what was wrong with me at 7 years. The corrective surgery was done in ‘05, yet the permanent damage has been done. I have lived in my bedroom for the last 7 years and there are some days I hate my life but I am digress.
I know that I am EXTREMELY fortunate!!! I am incredibly thankful that I am not dying of a terminal disease which so many mothers, including fathers, are faced with everyday. Nor am I a very young child suffering from a terminal disease as they don’t deserve to suffer as children. I incredibly lucky to have health insurance, as well as to afford my medications each month. I know that there are millions of people that cannot afford their medications and must decide between whether they should eat or purchase their live saving medications which is a travesty for so many families in this country. The pharmaceutical companies don’t give a sh!t that people can’t afford their medication and Congress must act on these bastards. I am able to hire someone to clean my home each week as well as having found an incredible doctor that is trying to treat additional conditions I have been suffering from for the last 2+ years and he is trying to find answers for me.
Yet, I can say that we all make decisions in our lives that are the best decisions at that time and we must never blame ourselves if it’s a path that resulted in an unfortunate outcome. We all have paths that we take and whether they had favorable, or not outcomes, they have made us the women we are today. We have no reason to feel badly about our choices as we stand today from learning and growing from our choices. Women are the most resilient of the sex’s and have immense inner power, combined with unconditional empathy, able to juggle our lives and not accepting that which is unworthy of us. We all have immeasurable strength which we didn’t realize we had but we still arise triumphantly handle what life may come our way. We may stumble a bit, but damn it if we don’t get back up, dust ourselves off and try again.
We should all be proud of our lives and not give into the outside voices that tell us differently. We have conquered many strives and made some progress but we know our fight is still not over, yet we still fight. Be true to yourself, never explain as no one deserves an explanation. No matter where we are in our lives, we can stand proud for simply thriving as a woman.
@Both Sides Now – wanted to wish you a very happy birthday and thank you for taking the time to write that. <3 I think we can be our own worst critics – it was really nice to reset and get a reminder that we're all doing what we think is the best decision in that moment.
@Both Sides Now: Thank you for what you’ve written. It was a journey to read, and very encouraging. I’m wishing you excellent health, and a very happy birthday! 🥳🥳🤩🤩
@ Ikuraholic, thank you for the warm wishes!! I hope that women understand how, no matter what, we are strong, powerful, resilient as well as survivors!!! Yes, we can be our worst critic, but we must silence those doubts or questions. Of course at times it is easier said than done.
We do make the best decisions for us at that time, and accept it if it didn’t turn out as we planned. But we must move on as we must not dwell what was, just learn and remember.
We must celebrate each other as well. We are kind natured, loving, empathetic as well as willing to lend a hand for those who have stumbled, including strangers.
My deepest condolences on the loss of your health/mobility and of your sister. May her memory be a blessing to you. Wishing you a peaceful and gentle birthday.
There’s definitely a reckoning with the idea that not everything is ahead of you still. When you’re young, you life is all possibilities. As you age, you realize that not everything that you’d hoped to fit into your life will fit. I thought I’d travel more. I thought I’d have kids. I thought I’d have some different things in my career. The older I get, the more I’m realizing not every one of those things will happen. There was a period when that made me really sad. Not I just feel like I’ll take things as they came and see what it brings me. I don’t have to plan, plan, plan!
Very well-said. I really feel what you said here about grappling with unfulfilled promises that you made to yourself. But you’re absolutely right that acceptance and gratitude, a focus on the here and now and not 20 years from now, all help to keep us moving forward, and not looking back.
Yes! And that’s so freeing!
All of you have a healthy vision of your lives and it’s wonderful!!! We cannot change what was or wasn’t. But it is incredibly freeing to let go of those missed opportunities or our plans for life!!! We all deserve to be free from self doubt as well as what happens in life.
Find her to be irritating at best.
But i think she’s right. I turned 50 in May.
Went horseback riding in Tennessee day- besides worrying the first 5 minutes on the horse that i would fall off and end up in the ER- it was a glorious day. The next month, i got a weekend with college girlfriends- all turning 50 this year, and we had a grand, relaxing time.
It is a joyful time. A time to be grateful (remember, the alternative to aging is death).
It is hard to feel bad for the very rich, but the rich and famous cling so hard to youth- and it is a battle you can only lose. It is not just them- all parts of our society are taught that youth is king.
But you still have to move forward and live your life in the NOW.
Oh, I totally relate to the “grief”. I’m turning 50 in December and I have absolutely been feeling like I’m grieving my youth. I miss my old body, I miss my free time, I miss the feeling that so much of life and opportunity was ahead of me. But it’s a phase and I’m sure it will pass. So much of it is hormone fluctuations as well. They really need to find a way to help ease the issues with peri-menopause because this *ish is no joke.
Also the grief of friendships ending loved ones dying, etc. By the time one reaches 50 there have been losses great and small. And despite living well there is the knowing more will be lost. 50 and beyond is bittersweet.
@ D, yes!!! Please create a healthy form of dealing with our peri-menopausal, as well as menopause in general, that doesn’t cause us harm in the process!!!
She has bored me for years. Nothing has changed. Someone needs to do serious research before interviewing her. She’s said some offensive things about women in the past.
Why is she talking to mere humans? She should be in levitating with a halo blessing us poor mortals.
I 10000% agree!
For me, turning 50 was amazing. You’re old enough to have some wisdom (hopefully!) and young enough to appreciate it.
I stole what a 10-years-older friend had done with a few personalized tweaks and threw a girls’-only sleepover – boys were invited for dinner and breakfast. I had air mattresses for everyone and we did “beauty night” (I had spa supplies) and the whole thing was glorious.
Fifty is the best! Happy birthday to Gwyneth. If she has a fraction of the fun I did, it’ll be a great day.
47 and feeling it here. Happy Birthday Goopy
me tooo! I feel like 45 on has been a struggle. I’m ready to feel older and wiser and peaceful and not lost and sad and not very happy with myself!
I’m 55-and I feel like turning 50 was not that big of a deal. But now facing my late 50s-I definitely feel like yes, I am missing my younger self. I’m a very cautious person, and I feel like there are things I should have gone after or experienced that I can’t get back. That’s why I’m always encouraging my kids to go after their dreams and push themselves to go outside of their comfort zone.
I remember reading something about when people age, the biggest regrets aside from the “I shouldn’t have worked so much” tend to be around things they didn’t do, try.
So I’ve been trying to view things more as “why wouldn’t I try that? it might be fun” instead of defaulting to “why should I try that”. And trying to train myself to not care whether random other people would approve (like people I live with, sure they can have an opinion about something that might impact them … but they don’t always get a vote . Other people? They don’t get to weigh in (like if people I went to school with think I’m silly or inelegant or whatever, what do I care?)
Also the other thing is I’ve rarely looked at old pictures of myself and thought I looked as bad as I thought I did at the time. So all the things I shied away from or the times I felt “less than” in a gathering were me just wasting energy or ruining my own fun.
And over the years, I look back and think “if I looked like that now, I’d be really happy*. I’m probably going to feel the same way about Today-Me when I look back in 10 years. So I’m gonna just go happily with what I’ve got!”
So I’m trying to remember that in the now, and taking on an attitude of being just fine the way I am at the moment.
* aside from one really bad hairstyle phase
To your second point, I decided to try to make healthier/better choices this year (I’m 45) and as a result, have lost a pretty sizeable amount of weight. So I bought a bikini this summer, because I figure I’m probably never going to be happier with how I look and why not? I could cry for all the time I wasted in my 20’s (before kids) when my body was bangin’ and I still thought I was fat!
I identify with having no f*cks to give as I age…people who love/like me won’t judge me, and who cares about everyone else? I feel more confidence and more in control than I ever have before.
@North of Boston: you’ve given me a lot of food for thought, thank you. I went on a waterfall hike this past weekend, and I was very reserved for a couple of reasons. But none should’ve superseded the fact that I was at a waterfall. This is my life and that was an opportunity to explore and take a gorgeous picture with me in it. And I didn’t live it to the fullest. I’ll make a different choice next time. Thanks again for the reminder 💗💗💗
@Ama1977: congrats on your healthy choices and that bikini! I had a similar thought as you; I saw a clip from the TV show Schitt’s Creek where Moira encouraged the young woman to take boudoir photos because she will look back at those photos in later years with much kinder eyes than she has for herself now. That stuck with me, and I’ll be booking a boudoir shoot for September 💗
Edit: here’s the Schitt’s Creek clip! It’s really sweet https://www.instagram.com/tv/CgEUWtBuNma/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
🥰❤️
@ MaryContrary, I took the same approach with my children as well. I drilled into their heads to take their 20’s for themselves!! Take it to travel, figure out who and what they wanted to do. Do not marry in their 20’s as well as spend it being selfish to travel, explore what will make them happy in life!! You spend 20 years under the restrictions of your parents and you deserve the decade to explore, experience as well as find out what makes YOU happy, not what you had planned. My daughter took it to heart and has experienced the wonders of the world has grown. Though my son didn’t take it to heart but that was his decision. I can only guide them when they ask.
Happy birthday, Gwyneth and to all the people here turning 50. I am approaching 60, and I would love to go back and enjoy turning 50. I hate to be a downer here, but enjoy your 50’s. Years ago, on this site somebody told me that you age a lot toward the second half of that decade. She was correct. I feel like I went from middle age to old. I don’t FEEL old, but the mirror me otherwise.
Agree with everything in the last paragraph, Kaiser, especially this: “Of course, I’ve always believed that once you get past your mid-20s, most people just give less of a f–k with each passing year. It’s like all of that drama and anxiety being phased out, year by year.”
Yeah I feel like nature kind of just inoculates you against a lot of that stuff as part of the natural aging process. And it’s not to say that I don’t have moments where I mourn my younger self (especially my butt lol) but with age comes a shift from outward to inward focus, which is nice. I really don’t miss being obsessed with my appearance—it’s a relief to feel free to focus on who I am and not what I look like.
I’m turning 50 in a week and I’m making this the summer of self care. I’ve lost too many people I loved who were too young so I will not complain, I’m grateful to be here. 50 is bringing a new exciting phase, where no one else’s opinions matter to me, I have confidence because of everything I’ve been through and I just want to feel good!
Love this! You go, girl. xx
Such a beautiful and wonderful outlook!!!
Just turned 62 and feel VITAL and alive! Top tips: Walk every day, stretch often, eat real food. If I fall off my routine (and I do), I forgive myself and start again. Every “Day One” is a day won!
I love what you’ve said here, TeamMeg, you sound like a truly lovely and balanced person. TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!!
I like Gwyneth; she seems like a fun person. Amazingly, I’ve never seen Shakespeare in Love nor purchased any Goop. I like what she says about knowing who you are to get through times when people are wanting to tear you down and take great pleasure in it.
Yes, I can agree with her points regarding knowing who you are, not allowing those to tear you down. We must always stand up and out those who wish to tear us down, may they f-off!!!
I can take or leave Gwyneth but I do like what she has to say here. So little is said about what happens to a woman in her 40’s and beyond, the grief, yes grief, of saying goodbye to youth. I didn’t even know peri menopause was a thing till a few months ago and I’m 44! It’s shocking how little support and openness there is about the female aging process in mainstream culture and media. When I turned 40, I plunged into a funk that I am only sort of getting out of now. I’ve had two strokes and lost both my parents in the last ten years, I’m so grateful to be alive! But no matter what, there’s always a voice telling you there’s another grey hair, another wrinkle, another step closer to social irrelevance. It’s time to reclaim the female cultural narrative and not be dictated to by old white dudes out to make a buck on our insecurities.
It’s like she’s the first woman in the world to reach 50– the first significant woman.
OMG. I thought she was already in her 50s!