Gwyneth Paltrow Revealed Why She Wouldn’t Want to Age Backwards Into Her 20s or 30s
Gwyneth Paltrow has shown that she’s aging just like most people despite her celebrity status. The Oscar-winner embraced her aging so much that she preferred it over living out her younger years again.
What Gwyneth Paltrow learned about herself as she’s gotten older
Paltrow had already accomplished many of her goals by the time she was in her 20s. She starred in several hit movies and won an Oscar for Best Actress by that point. Given how much she lived back then, Paltrow believed she was already a full-fledged adult. But in hindsight, she realized how young she truly was. In an interview with CBS News, Paltrow touched on how the pressures of Hollywood fame and success messed up her mind.
“You know, to reach that kind of, like, pinnacle at that age and have that much scrutiny and attention, and then it’s like, no matter what you do after that, you can’t really win, right? It’s like you have a few years of it’s, like, nothing’s gonna live up to that. It’s just a lot to hold,” Paltrow said.
Back then, Paltrow also confided that she didn’t think much about what life would’ve been like when she hit her 50s and beyond. The Iron Man star quipped she wasn’t sure she’d have much of a life left by then.
“I thought, you know, 50 is, like, you’re dead at that point,” she said.
However, Paltrow is still very much alive at 52-years-old. Additionally, her 40s and 50s showed that life still offered as much fun, if not more so, than it did in her younger years. The last decade saw Paltrow find a new life partner in her current husband Brad Falchuk. She’s also seen her kids grow old enough to attend college. Speaking with L’Officiel, Paltrow confided that she learned to love the aging process. Furthermore, she wouldn’t trade it back to relive her youth.
“For me, as I go through the aging process, I realize it’s less about, ‘Oh, I have this wrinkle, am I going to fix it or not?’ and more, ‘Do I feel vibrant?’” she said.
“I would never want to go back to my 20s, or even my 30s. I know myself, I like myself and I am so grateful for the wisdom that comes with age,” Paltrow added.
Nowadays, Paltrow proudly shows off her years. One of the reasons why she doesn’t wear makeup is because she doesn’t want to hide how old she is.
Gwyneth Paltrow felt women like her were redefining what being 50 meant
Paltrow believed that she and her contemporaries were changing the perception of what being 50-years-old typically was.
“On some level culturally, we’ve totally redefined what 50 is for people, both internally and externally. I think of J.Lo—she kind of looks the best she ever has, you know? For so many women I know, this is the best time so far, the peak time of their lives. So I’m happy at this big birthday,” she said in an interview with her company Goop.
It helped that she admired the way the younger generation was beginning to look at aging. But she clarified that women had different strategies and preparations for hitting their middle-aged years. Still, seeing how gracefully her peers aged only further motivated Paltrow to do the same, regardless of their methods.
“I love when you see women who have not touched their face at all, who are embracing every inch of their aging. And then there are those women you look at and wonder, How can they be 78? How are they pulling that off? It has to be some kind of face-lift or other work, and I love that, too. People looking the way they’d like to look, feeling their best—that inspires me,” she said.
