As far as we’re concerned, aging is a sign of beauty — a sign of strength, resilience and courage. Nobody makes it into a new decade by accident, so aging should be praised and celebrated, with women commended for each new year. In a society where youth is the ultimate goal, it’s time to change the narrative.
We’re not the only ones who believe this. In fact, many of your favorite female celebrities have their own opinions on aging as a woman, and they’re pretty incredible. Keep reading for inspiring quotes on aging from all of your favorite celebs.
Sarah Jessica Parker
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Sarah Jessica Parker Talks Plastic Surgery and Aging in Hollywood"I don't really think about my age, I don't see it as something to worry about," she told Vogue Paris in an interview. "I don't see the point of trying to suspend time…At times I have the impression that others may be more concerned about my appearance, which is rather strange. Like the fact that I have wrinkles or white hair...One day I was sitting next to a very close friend, a woman younger than me. I wasn't wearing any make-up, my hair was pulled back in a bun, with some gray hair, and it caused quite a fuss.” Sarah has no interest in internalizing critiques from the media, either. “I think there are more interesting things to do with my time, don't you? I just really can't be the person that others expect me to be."
Taraji P. Henson
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Taraji P. Henson Brings Mental Health Resources To Black Women At HBCUs | The View“Yes, applaud that! You know why? I want to be the representation for women that your sexy...never dies until you’re in the box,” Taraji exclaimed to the audience on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “Listen, it’s how you feel. I decided I wasn’t going to allow the world — men of this industry — to dictate how I live my life and how I age. I’m going to turn 50 just like I turned 30, except, you know, my knees are a little different. But I’m not going to buy into ‘my career is over’ or ‘life for me is over’ or ‘my sexy is over’ or ‘I shouldn’t wear this.’ I’m going to do what I feel.”
Rebecca Minkoff
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There Is Nothing Wrong With Growing Slow And Steady According To Rebecca Minkoff | Forbes“We’re not dying at 50. What are we doing with this next 40 years? Going to boohoo about not being 25?” Rebecca said to StyleLikeU. “I don't need to be who I was when I was 32. I need to be who I am. There’s no such thing as aging gracefully and there's no graceful or ungraceful way to do it — you just do it. I don't want to be one of those people who's like, ‘Oh, you’re 50, you have to cut your hair short.’ I used to be the person who was like, ‘That’s not age-appropriate,’ and now I’m like, ‘Fuck those rules!’ There’s something about not playing small in a world that always makes you feel that way, that is an act of bravery and beauty like no other.”
Tracee Ellis Ross
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3 Reasons Tracee Ellis Ross Loves Getting Older | Health"Well, I personally have always loved getting older, like genuinely, I think it's an honor to get older," she said to NPR. "Not everybody gets to get older, and I'm not sure why we don't look at it that way."
Brooke Shields
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Kirsten Dunst, Brooke Shields & Kelly Clarkson Talk Female Empowerment, Aging In HollywoodIn a TikTok post, Brooke got candid about aging. "I can't say I love wrinkles, because that would be, like, a lie," Shields said. "But what I will say is that I have earned them, and they're from smiling, so I don't want to eradicate everything that shows my maturity and my growth and who I am today, and I'm not trying to be like I was when I was 15."
Cyndi Lauper
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Cyndi Lauper: Women Are More Than Their AgeCyndi is perfectly content with aging, and she wants you to know it. “Age has nothing to do with it. You'll get wherever it is you want to go at whatever time in your life you want to do it,” she told AARP The Magazine. “We are brainwashed about what age you're supposed to marry, what age you're supposed to have a kid, what age you're supposed to do this or that.”
Michelle Obama
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Does Self Confidence Grow With Age? Part 1 | The ViewOne of the most influential women of our time had a lot to say about aging while on tour with Oprah. "We are so ridiculous as women," Michelle said. "We don’t want to talk about our age, and then we want to act like we should look like we did when we were 20, you know? When, I’m sorry, men you can look any kind of way. And it seems to be okay…I try hard not to judge it [my body]…It’s different. You have to get to know your body, because what this body is at 56 — I can’t do the things I did when I was 36. It’s not the same body. We are living things. We’re not machines. You know, we run out of gas. We need fuel. We need sunshine and light. We need to take care of ourselves and when you don’t, as you get older, just like any living thing it begins to fail on you. And for me, I’m trying to figure out, what is that balance that I need to make sure that this body, that God gave me, that I’m taking care of it the best that I can and that it will serve me well as I get older."
Beyoncé
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Beyoncé Commencement Speech | Dear Class Of 2020“This is the first year that I really understand what it means to be alive and to live in the moment," Beyoncé wrote in a handwritten note on her 40th birthday, shared on her official website. "It's the first time that I have an understanding of how fragile life truly is, how hard life can be at times, and therefore how important it is to stop and smell the roses during the good times. I thought I knew that at 21 or 30...but I didn't. The more mature I become, the more I understand and the deeper my joy grows...I'm finally giving myself permission to enjoy the seeds I've worked so hard to plant my whole life. Whoever tried to condition women to feel that we are supposed to feel old or unhappy when we turn 40 got it ALL THE WAY F'd UP," she quipped. "It has absolutely been the best I've felt in my life. I'm so grateful to be GROWN, GROWN!”
Jane Fonda
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Jane Fonda on Why at 85 She’s the Happiest She’s Ever Been: "Life Gets Better With Age" | PEOPLE“When I was about to turn 60, I realized that I was approaching my third act—my final act—and that it wasn’t a dress rehearsal,” Jane told Glamour. “One of the things that I knew for sure is that I didn’t want to get to the end with a lot of regrets, so how I lived up until the end was what was going to determine whether or not I had regrets.” Fonda did a “life review” that helped her see things more clearly. “It totally changed the way I thought about myself and about how I wanted to live the last third of my life,” she said. “And I realized the importance of being intentional about how we go through life...When you get older, you realize that staying healthy is joyful and critical because age isn’t so much chronology. You can be very old at 84, which is my age, but you can also be very young.”
Halle Berry
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What’s ‘Heartbreaking’ to Halle Berry 20 Years After Her Oscar Win“We’re all going to get older. Our skin is going to shrivel up and we’re going to look different. I see things changing with my face and body, but I’ve never put all my eggs in that basket. I’ve always known that beauty is deeper than the physical body you’re walking around in," Halle told AARP. “I refuse to become someone who just tries to hold onto a youthful face and not embrace what’s most important about being beautiful — how you live your life, how you give back to others, how you connect to people, how you strengthen your mind, body, and soul and nourish yourself, how you give in a meaningful way of yourself. The most beautiful people have something radiating inside. Women are told that when we reach a certain number, we’re no longer valuable. I believe the opposite. Society should look at us as jewels as we get older. Because the older women get, the more formidable we are.”
Sandra Oh
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Sandra Oh Opens Up About 'Killing Eve', Her Acting Career, Inspiring Change & More | TIME 100 | TIME“I was more insecure when I was 20 than I am at 47,” Sandra told InStyle, for whom she wore a mirror sequined Gucci dress. “At 47 it’s like, ‘You need me to put on a crazy dress with mirrors? Yeah, sure. I’m going to work the s**t out of this!’ I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s, like, you give less f**ks. Aging is the greatest. It really gives you more space to be that person in the mirrored dress who has always been inside.”
Julianne Moore
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Julianne Moore on Not Buying the "Fear of Aging" Brainwashing | Makeup & Friends | Westman Atelier“There’s so much judgment inherent in the term ‘aging gracefully.’ Is there an ungraceful way to age? We don’t have an option of course. No one has an option about aging, so it’s not a positive or a negative thing, it just is. It’s part of the human condition, so why are we always talking about it as if it is something that we have control over?” Julianne told As If. The question Julianne thinks we should be asking ourselves instead? “How do we continue to challenge ourselves, to interest ourselves, learn new things, be more helpful to other people, be the person that your friends and family need or want? How do we continue to evolve? How do we navigate life to have even deeper experiences? That’s what aging should be about.”
Padma Lakshmi
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Padma Lakshmi - Savoring Life as a “Top Chef” Host & Fighting for Human Rights | The Daily Show“Growing older gracefully means having a keen curiosity about learning things about the world that you didn’t know yesterday, no matter how many yesterdays you've had,” Padma told Esquire, adding, “I don't feel guilty taking pleasure in things anymore.”
Gwyneth Paltrow
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Gwyneth Paltrow, 50, is ‘embracing’ aging: It’s ‘weird’ to be ‘frozen in time’"I am no longer in my 20s and 30s, I am 46 and I love being in my 40s," she said during a 2019 panel with CNN's Poppy Harlow at SXSW. "I think there is this incredible freedom that comes with a woman in her 40s and understanding that this is who I am and I've stopped worrying so much about what people think of me."
Angelina Jolie
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Angelina Jolie's Advice to Her Younger Self!"I look in the mirror and I see that I look like my mother, and that warms me," Jolie told InStyle in a 2018. "I also see myself aging, and I love it because it means I'm alive — I'm living and getting older. Don't love having a random dark spot from a pregnancy, sure. I see my flaws. But what I see that I like isn't about a structure or an appearance. It's more that I see my family in my face. I see my age."
Katherine Heigl
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Katherine Heigl: Fighting The Battle Of The Aging Actress"40 feels to me like a certain kind of freedom," Katherine wrote on Instagram. "Freedom from all the self doubt, insecurities, self loathing, uncertainties and anxieties of my 20's and 30's. Not to say I don't still have those moments but I just feel like 40 makes me older and wiser. Steadier in my convictions. More certain of my strengths. More forgiving of my faults."
How do you embrace aging? Let us know @BritandCo!
Header images courtesy of Dia Dipasupil / Staff / Getty Images Entertainment (Sarah Jessica Parker), Arturo Holmes / Staff / Getty Images Entertainment (Sandra Oh), Roy Rochlin / Stringer / Getty Images Entertainment (Padma Lakshmi), Gareth Cattermole / Staff / Getty Images Entertainment (Beyoncé), Paul Morigi / Stringer (Michelle Obama).
