12 A-listers who shared their menopause struggles

The Sex and The City star had an on-screen menopause as well as an off-screen one. Her character, Samantha, slightly older than Miranda, Carrie and Charlotte, is going through the menopause in the second SATC film, and is forced to go without her hormone medications during a trip to Abu Dhabi. While a more comedic than serious plotline, Kim believes playing Samantha helped her come to terms with the menopause.

“I don’t think it’s shameful. It’s as natural as having a child – it really is; it’s part of life. Physically, it’s part of how we’re made; hormonally, it’s how we’re constructed; chemically, it’s how we work. Like anything in nature: The seed is planted, it grows, it comes to fruition, after a period of time it starts to change and age, and it’s scary,” she told Cosmopolitan.

“I wonder, ‘Will I be attractive, desirable, feminine? What is [the] next chapter of life?’ I think it’s one of the reasons why it’s so taboo is because we don’t talk about – it’s too frightening even to talk to [a] doctor about it. I want to reach out to women to encourage them to educate themselves about this time in their lives.”

Michelle Obama went through menopause while First Lady of the United States. Speaking on The Light podcast, Michelle recalled a hot flush at a most inopportune time.

“I remember having one on Marine One. I’m dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high, and then everything started melting. And I thought, Well, this is crazy—I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do this.”

Husband Barack took it all in his stride. “He didn’t fall apart because he found out there were several women in his staff that were going through menopause. It was just sort of like, ‘Oh, well, turn the air conditioner on.'”

Michelle subsequently learnt to navigate life in the menopause. “I find that I cannot push myself as hard as I used to. That doesn’t work out for me. That when I tear a muscle or pull something and then I’m out. The recovery time is not the same. You wind up balancing between staying fit enough and being kind enough on your body to stay in the game,” she told People in 2022.

Michelle is also a fierce critic of the lack of public menopause discourse, previously admitting a reliance on her medically trained friends to provide information about what she was going through.

Gillian is another actress whose characters have brought menopause representation on-screen. Her character in the hit Netflix series Sex Education Jean Milburn is both pregnant and perimenopausal at the same time.

She opened up about the stigma attached to women of menopausal age. “How wonderful would it be if we could get to a place where we are able to have these conversations openly and without shame,” she told People in 2017. “Admit, freely, that this is what’s going on. So we don’t feel like we’re going mad or insane or alone in any of the symptoms we are having.

“Perimenopause and menopause should be treated as the rites of passage that they are,” she continued. “If not celebrated, then at least accepted and acknowledged and honoured.”

In 2013 Angelina Jolie opted to have a preventative double mastectomy when she realised that she had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of developing ovarian cancer. Angelina’s mother, grandmother and aunt had all died from cancer.

In 2015, she underwent surgery to remove her fallopian tubes and ovaries, and went into early menopause.

“Regardless of the hormone replacements I’m taking, I am now in menopause. I will not be able to have any more children, and I expect some physical changes. But I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life,” she wrote in the New York Times.

Actress-turned-wellness-guru Gwyneth turned her focus to the menopause when she began experiencing it herself and noticed that there were few products on the market catered towards menopausal women.

“I think when you get into perimenopause, you notice a lot of changes. I can feel the hormonal shifts happening, the sweating, the moods—you’re all of a sudden furious for no reason,” she told Goop in 2018 aged 46. “Menopause gets a really bad rap and needs a bit of rebranding. I remember when my mother went through menopause and it was such a big deal, and I think there was grief around it for her and all these emotions. I don’t think we have in our society a great example of an aspirational menopausal woman.”

Another Sex and the City star who has been open about the menopause is Cynthia Nixon. She explained in an interview with Stella magazine that her symptoms included “crazy mood swings” and hot flushes.

Despite the drawbacks, Cynthia explained how she is embracing the change.

“There has been no sadness for me, because once you hit 50, you’re done. So although I have a five-year-old, the freedom that comes from no longer being fertile is huge.

“Because you lose your identity [as a mother]. And people aren’t always interested in you – maybe because you’re not that interesting. Those women centuries ago who would go in search of themselves in a nunnery – well that’s what the menopause is to me: a chance to find myself. And what’s hilarious is that my wife and I are going through it at the same time.”

Although ‘Man, I Feel Like A (Menopausal) Woman’ might have been a less catchy title for Shania Twain’s biggest hit, it’s an apt description of the pop icon’s own menopause experience.

“I think menopause was a very good thing for me because there were a lot more things changing in everything about me physically that I had to very quickly come to terms with.

“Menopause taught me to quickly say, ‘You know, it may only get worse. So just love yourself now. Just get over your insecurities — they’re standing in your way. And fear is standing in your way.’ I always sing about being fearless and all of that. I go there when I write. But I’m not living it the way I’m writing it. And I want to live the way I write. I’m more fierce than I ever was because I really demanded it about myself,” she told the New York Post.

Drew recently hit the headlines for removing her hair extensions live on air when interviewing Pamela Anderson on being make-up free and embracing your true self. “If we’re being honest… An awesome symptom of perimenopause is that you start to lose your hair,” she told the cheering crowd.

She continued her menopause transparency on CBS Mornings “I realised that I was in perimenopause when I started having my period every two weeks. One doctor also just told me this could last, in the worst case scenario, 10 years. And I was like, I will never make it 10 years like this!”

For Oprah, the shift meant a new approach to her second act.

“So many women I’ve talked to see menopause as a blessing,” she wrote in Oprah magazine in 2019. “I’ve discovered that this is your moment to reinvent yourself after years of focusing on the needs of everyone else.”

As well as having a menopause information section on her website, Oprah has opened up about her own experiences and invited her audience to participate in sharing their symptoms.

“The menopause train is coming no matter what,” she said, during one show, saying you can’t “outfox the ‘Big M.'”

Her symptoms included heart palpitations, trouble focusing, and feeling unenthusiastic about life. It took a long time for the presenter to realise what was happening to her.

The British royal is using her position and influence for good. She was named patron of the Wellbeing of Women charity in 2021 and has been a key figure in speaking up about menopause.

During a roundtable event for the charity, Sophie made an impassioned speech.

“Women having to leave the workplace because of the menopause is tragic. We are fabulous in our 40s, and we are even more fabulous in our 50s, 60s and 70s and we need to celebrate that and keep opportunities going for women.

“Together, we can support the thousands of women out there who form the backbone of our workforce. We cannot let anyone leave the workplace feeling that they have got to slope off into the shadows. We have to be able to change that.”

Her speech was part of supporting the Menopause Workplace Pledge campaign with the charity.

“Really we should be celebrating the fact that we don’t have to have periods anymore – it should be a liberation, but it feels like a shackle. It’s described as something incredibly negative … I think it’s time to say ‘Enough, we need to bring this out onto the table and say, let’s talk about this.’ “

Perhaps predictably, Harry Potter star Julie Walters had a hilarious response to the menopause, taking it in her stride when her hot flushes interfered with her acting work.

She told Saga magazine: “Oh, God! It was like a chimney and came from the base of my spine. I was doing this TV show called Murder, and every take there’d be, ‘Stop! She’s having a flush!’

“At the National, I’d come offstage for a quick change and have to shout, ‘Garth, the tray!’ And this guy would come with this big tin tray and fan me. Harry Potter, I was in a wig and padding, and they had to put this big tube of air conditioning in my face!”

On an episode of Red Table Talk, Salma spoke about her symptoms. “I have gone through [mood swings and hot flashes], I still kind of am, but you got to notice those moments and take a deep breath and kind of say, ‘Okay, it’ll pass. You got to hold it together.’ And the hot flashes aren’t fun.”

She is keen to speak up about the presence and visibility of menopausal women.

“There’s no expiration date for women. That has to go. Because you can kick ass at any age. You can hold your own at any age, you can dream at any age, you can be romantic at age. We have the right to be loved for who we are at the place that we are. We’re not just here to make babies, we’re not just here to baby the man. We’re not just here to service everything and everyone around us and then when the kids go away … it’s almost like expiration date for you as a woman. It’s a misunderstanding that has been going around for centuries.”