Naomi Watts is on a mission to talk about menopause.
The Mulholland Drive star recently opened up about undergoing perimenopausal symptoms when she was 36, telling Hello! magazine that the transition “at such a young age was not easy.”
“Mood swings, night sweats, and migraines... I was feeling like I was spiralling out of control,” she said in an article published Monday, adding that she had to become her “own best advocate” to push through the “challenging period of adjustment.”
“I truly believe that if menopause hadn’t been such an off-limits topic when I first started experiencing symptoms, I would’ve had an easier transition,” Watts told the outlet.
“I was part of a cycle that desperately needed to be broken,” she explained. “There was a lack of open conversation and resources to help women navigate the changes we go through. That’s why I’m now so passionate about raising awareness and encouraging more honest conversations.”
Watts, now 54, has spoken more and more about her menopause journey in the past few years, recently launching a beauty care line that tailors to the symptoms women deal with.
She’s also expressed the importance of simply talking about menopause, saying that her mother didn’t share her own experience with perimenopause at a young age, until Watts approached her.
“I said to my mother, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’” Watts recalled in a video with Harper’s Bazaar in June. “And she said, ‘Well, these are the conversations I didn’t have with my mother, because she never had them with hers.’”
“That just hit hard,” the actor said. “It made me realize ― wow, this is a secret that has been kept generation upon generation. And, somehow, everyone’s signed this code of silence, yet everyone’s going there at some point. Why isn’t it talked about? Why do women have to be made to feel like they no longer exist?”