Naomi Watts detailed her body image struggles in her new book, recalling the moment she started “hiding” a specific part of her body.
“If I wear a bikini it’s not a string bikini. I’ll make sure it’s high-waisted, covering my belly button,” Watts, 56, shares in her book Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause. “I also started hiding my thighs after a trainer I’d worked with wrote about me in his book as being ‘fleshy.’ It got in my head!”
Watts appeared to be referring to the 2008 book titled Star Quality: The Red Carpet Workout for the Celebrity Body of Your Dreams, written by celebrity trainer Rob Parr. His comments about Watts made headlines at the time of the book’s release.
Watts, meanwhile, got candid about her menopause journey in her own book, Dare I Say It, released on Tuesday, January 21. In the book — which is part memoir and part guide to aging — she wrote that there “are no universal rules” when it comes to what women wear.
“We should wear whatever we want, especially in middle age,” Watts shared. “The great liberation for me has been realizing that when it comes to how we look, as the saying goes, the people ‘who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.’”
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Watts did joke about one problem area that she never has to see.
“I’m glad I don’t have to see my own elbows so I’ll wear whatever sleeves I want and if you need to look away that’s your problem,” she wrote.
Elsewhere in the book — while writing about her exercise routine — Watts talked about starting to wear crop tops in her 50s.
“Our bodies aren’t as taut or injury-free or unlined as they were twenty or thirty years ago,” the actress explained in the book. “I’ve given birth and spent decades more in all weathers, and it shows.”
She shared that a friend nicknamed her stomach Benjamin Button, referring to Brad Pitt’s 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button following the story of a man who ages in reverse.
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“It’s so wrinkled that it resembles a paper bag that’s been twisted up and left damp on the side of the road,” Watts said. “And yet, I’ll wear a crop top now, which I never would have done back before I had the paper-bag stomach.”
Watts told readers that she’s “proud” of her body.
“I’ll show it to the world if I want to,” she added. “At this age, we can exercise not just for vanity but for joy and health, which feels much more rewarding.”
Dare I Say It is out now.
