Sarah Jessica Parker Doesn't Want To Be Called Brave For Aging Gracefully

Sarah Jessica Parker wants people to stop calling her brave for letting the aging process happen naturally and letting her gray hair shine through.

Sarah Jessica Parker Doesn’t Want To Be Called Brave For Aging Gracefully

Aging is inevitable, but when you’re in the spotlight, it takes on a whole life of its own. Unlike her most notable character Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker is embracing the aging process and says she has never stepped foot in a plastic surgeon’s office.

No Interest in Hiding the Process

Parker recently told Bustle that she has no interest in reversing the aging process. “I’m not willing to devote a lot of real or psychic time to it. I’m also not delusional about the passage of time and the reality of it,” she said. “It’s not as if it doesn’t penetrate that other people have opinions about aging and my aging and the way I look and the way other women look – I’m aware of that.”

But at the same time, she doesn’t think that people who do fight aging are in any way wrong. “It’s because I think the point of this larger conversation is what makes you feel OK when you walk out the door,” she explained. “How best to feel like yourself is the thing I’ve probably spent more time thinking about than I have beauty or aging, because there’s just simply not a lot I can do about it. I could do more, but I guess I don’t want to.”

Stop Calling Her Brave

The “And Just Like That” actress, 57, wants people to stop calling her brave for letting her gray hair show. Last summer, Parker was photographed with Andy Cohen dining in Manhattan with no makeup, hair back. The image went viral and started many months of dialogue about how brave she is for having gray hair. She told Allure, “It became months and months about how brave I am for having gray hair. I was like, please please applaud someone else’s courage on something.”

There’s No Denying the Double Standard

Parker also discussed the double standard, pointing out that no one commented on Cohen’s “full head of beautiful gray hair” in that viral dining photo. “But no one mentioned him, sitting right next to me. Not a soul,” she explained. “I’m not angry, it’s just an observation.”

Her Focus is More on Feeling Good

Parker has explained that she does still color her hair but just not as often, because it’s “too much.” She’s just more focused on feeling good. “When I walk out the door, I want to feel okay according to my standards,” she said. “I can’t even tell you what those standards are. But you know how you feel when you feel most like yourself, whatever that means. I’m not without vanity. I guess I just don’t care enough about everybody else’s opinion.”

Her Optimism on the Aging Process

The actress told InStyle that the key to staying optimistic on aging is to not think about it. “I’m forced to think about it because of what I do for a living and because other people seem to want me to think about it or they’re thinking about my age,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that I’m delusional or that I live in some false universe where I’m in amber and I’m not changing. I’ve asked a huge amount of myself physically on camera and off camera on stage. I’ve run and jumped and worked on my body for 40-some years. I’m feeling it.” She also said she feels the stress women have regarding aging can be due to misogyny. She said, “I’m confounded by the fact that we simply don’t talk about men that way. It’s bizarre to me that we are still so transparently sexist about these things.”