Latest news with #Unapologetically
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mel Robbins's ‘let them' theory is changing lives. These 6 magic words changed hers.
'Let them' is the two-word phrase that Mel Robbins made famous when she wrote a book encouraging people to take control of their own lives by relinquishing judgment of (and from) others. Your friends didn't invite you to dinner? Let them. The car driver in front of you is going too slow? Let them. Your coworker is stepping on your toes at work? Let them — and spend your time doing something productive rather than worrying about it. It's a mantra that's struck a chord with millions around the world, propelling Robbins to household name status in the process. But there's a different phrase Robbins herself uses in her own day-to-day life: What if it all works out? Those are 'six magic words that change everything,' the 56-year-old author and podcast host tells me during a conversation for Yahoo Life's Unapologetically series, where we're set to discuss aging and reinvention. Robbins appears to have a positive outlook on both those things, but it wasn't always this way, and it didn't come overnight. 'Nothing that I teach or that I share online or in the podcast or in books or anywhere came from positive motivation. … I don't know what it is, but I am negatively motivated,' she admits. 'I literally had to learn everything the hard way. I had to just about lose everything that mattered to me. I had to get so sick of my own shit that I was like, There's got to be an easier way.' If you're unfamiliar with Robbins's lore — as I was before accidentally attending the New York stop of her 'Let Them: The Tour' — it's important to know the former lawyer's work in self-help began when she needed it most. At 41 years old, she found herself in massive debt, unhappy in her marriage and abusing alcohol, all while raising three young kids. She struggled with negative thinking until she decided to flip the script. 'If you're going to torture yourself by constantly considering the negative, you owe it to yourself to force yourself to consider the positive,' says Robbins of the six-word question. 'It is magical for anxiety. It's magical for procrastination. It's magical for perfectionism. It's magical for overthinking. It stops you from stopping yourself … and it has absolutely changed my life.' So does she believe in being older and wiser? Not really. But establishing honesty with herself and with others has helped. Here's what she has to say about it. When you recognize that almost everything that you believe was planted in your brain by parents or society or friends or the media, you also have this other epiphany: If my brain was taught to believe this, maybe I should get serious about teaching my brain to believe things that make me feel good instead of making me believe things that don't. That to me is kind of the biggest insight, that you don't have a choice over what's happened in the past and what brought you to where you are right now in this moment. … But you always have a choice from this moment on [in terms of] what you do next and what you say to yourself about the things that have happened. And that is a life-changing realization. That's not just positive thinking bulls***, because I don't think you just say positive things and the world's problems go away. What I'm talking about is intentionally encoding in your mind patterns of thinking that lift you up and make you more optimistic and resilient, which better equips you to deal with the very real issues, problems, challenges and opportunities that you're facing. They don't make things disappear. Your mindset has the power to armor you up in a way so that you're stronger and better equipped at facing what life throws your way. Reinvention in my life has been constant. And reinvention happens in different ways. You can be forced to reinvent yourself because you get fired or you can't pay your bills or you let yourself go and you can't climb a flight of stairs without hyperventilating or you realize you have been in a string of relationships with people that treat you like garbage. … So there are the moments where life forces your hand. For me, it was more an accumulation of things that were not working in my life, an accumulation of a way of going through life that didn't feel good and it finally just boiled over, and I'm like, I have to change, I'm not happy. … When you realize that, like, Wow, I've been depressed for 40 years. I'm kind of tired of feeling that way, that's the only realization that you need to go, There must be a better way. Of the 8 billion people on this planet, someone must have figured out how to go from where I am and what I feel to feeling a little better. And if someone else has done it, then maybe I can take those steps too. I think about life as if we are all on one big, long walk together. You start at mile marker zero, and you end wherever it ends. On the road of life, there are always going to be people that are slightly in front of you and people that are behind you, and not because of age. I think your mile markers mark the time here, but where people are on the road of life in relation to you has to do with whether or not they've gone through something. If you have the kind of mindset where you could learn anything from anyone, there are things that you've gone through that I haven't gone through yet, you're a couple steps ahead of me. And if I have an open mind and open energy, and I'm willing to lean into life and be interested in other people, there are things that you would teach me because you've gone through them and I haven't. The same is true with me. Just because I'm older doesn't mean I necessarily know more. I've certainly made more mistakes, but I look at everybody as somebody that you can learn from, and I personally feel like you are best equipped to help the person you used to be. Oh my god, no. I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was a people pleaser. I would do anything to make you like me. I would pretend I liked the same music you liked. What's interesting is I don't think it naturally comes with age either. I think a lot of people that say they know who they are in their 50s are lying. I think you can figure out who you are at any age if you actually start saying what you really feel and telling the truth and saying, 'I don't know but I can find out' or 'I've never experienced that' or 'I disagree with you.' … I think you can have that realization at 30, you can have it at 25 — but there's so much social pressure. Well, I always find it very jarring that when I was in my 30s, Betty White was on The Golden Girls. She was my age [now]. … I thought 50 would be time to get retired, time to start looking old, time to be irrelevant to society because, you know, it's about the 20-year-old celebrities and we're like the old mayors getting thrown out into the corral. No. It's actually the opposite. I feel like the longer you live, the more you know who you are and who you're not. And that's a very freeing thing. There is this massive kind of leveling up or self-awareness that we all have about the benefits and the importance of taking care of ourselves and understanding that just because you get older doesn't mean you're getting frail or ugly or unwanted or undeserving. … What's exciting about being 50 is that, given the world that we live in, there is so much amazing information about how to make the most of your life, whatever that means for you, no matter what age you are. I think one of the reasons why people are so inspired by what I'm doing is it happened late in life. It's not like I was a public figure in my 20s and then did multiple reinventions and now I'm hosting a podcast — and there's nothing wrong with that. But literally, I'm a woman who has been married 30 years, I've raised three children, I have experienced bankruptcy, depression, anxiety, postpartum depression, the ups and downs. And I have never thought about whether or not I need to be good-looking or better-looking. In fact, our content does better the worse I look because I look like myself I don't give a s*** what I look like. I really don't. … The obsession with beauty is both something that has been shoved at women and something we've allowed ourselves to be consumed by. And it is very liberating to understand that there is power in allowing yourself to be seen first by yourself and then by the world around you. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't look nice at work or dress up for an interview or dress the part. It doesn't mean you shouldn't pull yourself together because it makes you feel more confident. You should absolutely do those things. But it is liberating. Oh, 25 maybe. Although I was really f***ed up when I was 25, so maybe I don't want to go back to that age. I mean, that was pre-therapy, pre-getting the anxiety and childhood trauma under control, pre-diagnosis of ADHD. It's such a cliché, but I think age is more about energy and attitude. There have been periods of my life when I was a lot younger — I was in my mid-30s, for example — and I felt old and life felt heavy and I felt trapped or stuck or just did not know who I was, you know what I mean? So I do think it's really about the energy that you bring to life and the attitude that you have about life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ming-Na Wen is 61. She feels like she's in her 30s.
If you're surprised to learn that Ming-Na Wen — best known for voicing Mulan in the Disney films alongside roles in ER, The Joy Luck Club and, more recently, the Star Wars franchise — is 61, it might be because she was playing teenagers into her 20s. It also doesn't hurt that, as Wen herself notes, her skin is pore-free. And despite being a Hollywood veteran who has weathered motherhood and menopause — the latter of which 'kicked me in the ass,' she tells me during our call for Yahoo Life's Unapologetically series — the actress has managed to embrace aging while maintaining a youthful spirit. 'I don't know what 61 feels like. I mean, I still feel like I'm in my 30s, I guess,' she says. 'And then there are days when I feel like I'm 14 years old when I meet [someone] like Jackie Chan or when I geek out at Mark Hamill in his Jedi outfit on set. ... It just depends on the circumstances.' Her Karate Kid: Legends co-star Chan, who is 10 years her senior, also set an example for career longevity, Wen says. 'He's still vying for roles, he's still hungry to create stories and content for himself. That's what keeps pushing me,' she shares. Here, she talks about this latest era of her career, her all-natural approach to beauty and why she's excited to play moms after always being cast as daughters. Wow, no, not at all. ... I think the idea that I would have a long career like this is something you dream about. But you never know. Your fear is always, OK, this is my last job, this is all I'm gonna get. And then you just fade off into the sunset. It happens to a lot of actors. So I'm very grateful. [As an Asian American actress] you're constantly just fighting for roles, and especially back then, there were so few and far between. So you're scrambling and your agents are scrambling to try to find parts that were not written specifically for an Asian. And I did, you know, obtain a lot of those roles ... but you were just fighting for scraps back in those days. I feel like it's such a combination of luck, fate, hard work and having the right team of people who believe in you and want to see you succeed. ... Having a belief in yourself, that this is your destiny and that you have to keep pursuing it and not quitting. Those are, I think, some of the elements that keep propelling me. And then I'm always looking for role models [within] each age bracket. I've always looked up to Betty White, especially now. I look up to Jean Smart. You recognize that the possibilities remain endless. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ming-Na Wen (@mingna_wen) I think being a mom has definitely made me a better actor. When you're a mom, you go through so many emotions and so many intense feelings — everything from vulnerability to inner strength to just growing up and being more observant. And also learning from my own children about who they are and who I am. It's definitely made me a better actor. I always played the daughters, or the young girlfriend and the ingenue. Now to be able to play the moms, I think it goes deeper and it gives me a chance to explore a lot of these more vulnerable and yet powerful emotions. I'm looking forward to what else I can dip my toes into. Well, luckily, with my genetics and my Asian genes, I am so grateful now. When I was younger, I was like, Oh, I wish I didn't look so Asian. You know, you don't appreciate being Asian; you just want to fit in. You want to be like the blond, blue-eyed [type] that you see everywhere, that are the 'Miss Popular' or getting all the lead roles. So now I embrace my culture, I embrace who I am. I love the fact that I can play younger roles. When I was in my 20s, I was playing a teenager. So it just perpetuates. I just hope to always be able to work with great, talented people who can not look at age as the factor in hiring, but instead look at what you can bring to the table. It's about the artistry, it's about the talents, as opposed to how many followers you have on social media. There are people out there who see beyond that, and those are the people that I look forward to working with, because they don't set boundaries for themselves. My reality is always and has always been that just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I can't play the role that wasn't specifically written for an Asian. So just because I'm a woman of a certain age now doesn't mean I [can't] play younger. We've got AI, babe. They can freaking transform me into a teenager if they wanted to. And what's so great is that I do have a childlike, Peter Pan sort of mentality. So I still play Mulan all the time. I still voice her all the time. So I do get to be a bit of a teenager whenever I'm Mulan. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ming-Na Wen (@mingna_wen) We are in a world of plastic surgery, Botox and filters to look as [young] as you can — young with no pores. Luckily, I don't have pores. I mean, this is all natural, babe, all natural right there. But I work at it, you know. I eat healthy, I train. I wish I slept better — I don't — but I work out. I make sure that I do my best because [my body] is my instrument. This is what I'm selling and it's important to keep it [in] its best form possible. With aging, I think if you try to fight what is a natural progression and the honor of getting older, the alternative is you're six feet under. [In] my culture, we do revere the elders and I think it's important to look your best, but it's also important to love the beauty of being more natural. So yeah, I don't mind aging. Sometimes it sucks because parts of your body hurt here and there. I think it's really important never to label how you're supposed to feel at any age. I think it's really important to just feel the best you can feel and be the best you can be and just say 'eff that' to that number. You know, I wish that our moms and our grandmothers had the platform to be open about it rather than feeling like they're going crazy or that they're alone in this struggle. It's real. I've never had postpartum [struggles] when I had kids, I never had really, really bad hormonal imbalance during my menstrual cycles. But menopause kicked me in the ass. ... I was getting panic attacks that I've never had before. I would be lethargic and unable to be motivated to even like, I don't know, do dishes or get up. It was scary because there's a part of me, maybe being an actor, where I can always kind of look in on myself. I'm like, This is not me. This is so not me. Something is wrong, something is happening. And so being able to share that and kind of forewarn younger women that if these things happen to you, be on the lookout, there is help out there, there [are] ways to try to rebalance your hormones and it's nothing to be ashamed about. It's a natural part of our body changing. So why should we be ashamed? You know, it would be like being ashamed that our hair grows. It's so bizarre. And that's the other hormonal thing about [menopause]: I have nose hair. Why is this my reward for perpetuating the human species by being able to give birth? Well, I went to see my doctor and got my hormones checked. My testosterone was really low and that's why I had no motivation to do anything. It's crazy that this is so strong in changing your personality, because I've always been someone who was absolutely motivated all the time to do anything, whether it's gardening, whether it's my arts and crafts, whether it's my work, whether it's raising my kids. So that imbalance altered who I am and I didn't like that person. I didn't like not being motivated to do anything. So he gave me some things for rebalancing my hormones. And it really, really helped a lot. I'm trying to embrace social media because I want to make it fun. It's another way to connect with the audience. ... I just started [TikTok], I don't know why. There's a part of me that's so regretting it. My whole persona or brand will be just like, I play all these badasses and I have these beautiful red carpet things, but that's not what comes home. That's what my husband's always saying when he sees me in a magazine. He's like, 'Can she come home some night?' So I want to show the real me where I'm a goofball. My kids will probably be hating it and feel embarrassed. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe that's my goal, is just to embarrass my kids. The advice that I would give to my 30-year-old self is to not give a shit about what other people think. And to cut [those people] out of your lives as soon as possible, or keep them at a very, very good distance. Because those are the people that you don't need to have in your life. I wish I could have appreciated my youth in my 30s. It's so crazy. I look back at some of my pictures in my 30s and I'm like, Why was I so critical of myself? Look at that hot little lady there. You know, it's so crazy. And I try to instill that in my kids and young people, to just really love being your age right now — or at any age, really. Now I think that way about myself. If I'm lucky enough to live as long as my mom — my mom's going to be 90 — if I'm able to live another 30 years, I'm going to look back and go, Shit, what was I complaining about? Being 60 was young. So yeah, if you're lucky enough to live long, appreciate where you're at now. I love that I can right now just live more in the present. I used to always think about the future. I used to always worry about the future. And I love the fact that, knowing that life is precious, I try very hard to be present and be aware of where I'm at and what I'm experiencing.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ming-Na Wen is 61. She feels like she's in her 30s.
If you're surprised to learn that Ming-Na Wen — best known for voicing Mulan in the Disney films alongside roles in ER, The Joy Luck Club and, more recently, the Star Wars franchise — is 61, it might be because she was playing teenagers into her 20s. It also doesn't hurt that, as Wen herself notes, her skin is pore-free. And despite being a Hollywood veteran who has weathered motherhood and menopause — the latter of which 'kicked me in the ass,' she tells me during our call for Yahoo Life's Unapologetically series — the actress has managed to embrace aging while maintaining a youthful spirit. 'I don't know what 61 feels like. I mean, I still feel like I'm in my 30s, I guess,' she says. 'And then there are days when I feel like I'm 14 years old when I meet [someone] like Jackie Chan or when I geek out at Mark Hamill in his Jedi outfit on set. ... It just depends on the circumstances.' Her Karate Kid: Legends co-star Chan, who is 10 years her senior, also set an example for career longevity, Wen says. 'He's still vying for roles, he's still hungry to create stories and content for himself. That's what keeps pushing me,' she shares. Here, she talks about this latest era of her career, her all-natural approach to beauty and why she's excited to play moms after always being cast as daughters. Wow, no, not at all. ... I think the idea that I would have a long career like this is something you dream about. But you never know. Your fear is always, OK, this is my last job, this is all I'm gonna get. And then you just fade off into the sunset. It happens to a lot of actors. So I'm very grateful. [As an Asian American actress] you're constantly just fighting for roles, and especially back then, there were so few and far between. So you're scrambling and your agents are scrambling to try to find parts that were not written specifically for an Asian. And I did, you know, obtain a lot of those roles ... but you were just fighting for scraps back in those days. I feel like it's such a combination of luck, fate, hard work and having the right team of people who believe in you and want to see you succeed. ... Having a belief in yourself, that this is your destiny and that you have to keep pursuing it and not quitting. Those are, I think, some of the elements that keep propelling me. And then I'm always looking for role models [within] each age bracket. I've always looked up to Betty White, especially now. I look up to Jean Smart. You recognize that the possibilities remain endless. I think being a mom has definitely made me a better actor. When you're a mom, you go through so many emotions and so many intense feelings — everything from vulnerability to inner strength to just growing up and being more observant. And also learning from my own children about who they are and who I am. It's definitely made me a better actor. I always played the daughters, or the young girlfriend and the ingenue. Now to be able to play the moms, I think it goes deeper and it gives me a chance to explore a lot of these more vulnerable and yet powerful emotions. I'm looking forward to what else I can dip my toes into. Well, luckily, with my genetics and my Asian genes, I am so grateful now. When I was younger, I was like, Oh, I wish I didn't look so Asian. You know, you don't appreciate being Asian; you just want to fit in. You want to be like the blond, blue-eyed [type] that you see everywhere, that are the 'Miss Popular' or getting all the lead roles. So now I embrace my culture, I embrace who I am. I love the fact that I can play younger roles. When I was in my 20s, I was playing a teenager. So it just perpetuates. I just hope to always be able to work with great, talented people who can not look at age as the factor in hiring, but instead look at what you can bring to the table. It's about the artistry, it's about the talents, as opposed to how many followers you have on social media. There are people out there who see beyond that, and those are the people that I look forward to working with, because they don't set boundaries for themselves. My reality is always and has always been that just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I can't play the role that wasn't specifically written for an Asian. So just because I'm a woman of a certain age now doesn't mean I [can't] play younger. We've got AI, babe. They can freaking transform me into a teenager if they wanted to. And what's so great is that I do have a childlike, Peter Pan sort of mentality. So I still play Mulan all the time. I still voice her all the time. So I do get to be a bit of a teenager whenever I'm Mulan. We are in a world of plastic surgery, Botox and filters to look as [young] as you can — young with no pores. Luckily, I don't have pores. I mean, this is all natural, babe, all natural right there. But I work at it, you know. I eat healthy, I train. I wish I slept better — I don't — but I work out. I make sure that I do my best because [my body] is my instrument. This is what I'm selling and it's important to keep it [in] its best form possible. With aging, I think if you try to fight what is a natural progression and the honor of getting older, the alternative is you're six feet under. [In] my culture, we do revere the elders and I think it's important to look your best, but it's also important to love the beauty of being more natural. So yeah, I don't mind aging. Sometimes it sucks because parts of your body hurt here and there. I think it's really important never to label how you're supposed to feel at any age. I think it's really important to just feel the best you can feel and be the best you can be and just say 'eff that' to that number. You know, I wish that our moms and our grandmothers had the platform to be open about it rather than feeling like they're going crazy or that they're alone in this struggle. It's real. I've never had postpartum [struggles] when I had kids, I never had really, really bad hormonal imbalance during my menstrual cycles. But menopause kicked me in the ass. ... I was getting panic attacks that I've never had before. I would be lethargic and unable to be motivated to even like, I don't know, do dishes or get up. It was scary because there's a part of me, maybe being an actor, where I can always kind of look in on myself. I'm like, This is not me. This is so not me. Something is wrong, something is happening. And so being able to share that and kind of forewarn younger women that if these things happen to you, be on the lookout, there is help out there, there [are] ways to try to rebalance your hormones and it's nothing to be ashamed about. It's a natural part of our body changing. So why should we be ashamed? You know, it would be like being ashamed that our hair grows. It's so bizarre. And that's the other hormonal thing about [menopause]: I have nose hair. Why is this my reward for perpetuating the human species by being able to give birth? Well, I went to see my doctor and got my hormones checked. My testosterone was really low and that's why I had no motivation to do anything. It's crazy that this is so strong in changing your personality, because I've always been someone who was absolutely motivated all the time to do anything, whether it's gardening, whether it's my arts and crafts, whether it's my work, whether it's raising my kids. So that imbalance altered who I am and I didn't like that person. I didn't like not being motivated to do anything. So he gave me some things for rebalancing my hormones. And it really, really helped a lot. I'm trying to embrace social media because I want to make it fun. It's another way to connect with the audience. ... I just started [TikTok], I don't know why. There's a part of me that's so regretting it. My whole persona or brand will be just like, I play all these badasses and I have these beautiful red carpet things, but that's not what comes home. That's what my husband's always saying when he sees me in a magazine. He's like, 'Can she come home some night?' So I want to show the real me where I'm a goofball. My kids will probably be hating it and feel embarrassed. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe that's my goal, is just to embarrass my kids. The advice that I would give to my 30-year-old self is to not give a shit about what other people think. And to cut [those people] out of your lives as soon as possible, or keep them at a very, very good distance. Because those are the people that you don't need to have in your life. I wish I could have appreciated my youth in my 30s. It's so crazy. I look back at some of my pictures in my 30s and I'm like, Why was I so critical of myself? Look at that hot little lady there. You know, it's so crazy. And I try to instill that in my kids and young people, to just really love being your age right now — or at any age, really. Now I think that way about myself. If I'm lucky enough to live as long as my mom — my mom's going to be 90 — if I'm able to live another 30 years, I'm going to look back and go, Shit, what was I complaining about? Being 60 was young. So yeah, if you're lucky enough to live long, appreciate where you're at now. I love that I can right now just live more in the present. I used to always think about the future. I used to always worry about the future. And I love the fact that, knowing that life is precious, I try very hard to be present and be aware of where I'm at and what I'm experiencing.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ming-Na Wen is 61. She feels like she's in her 30s.
If you're surprised to learn that Ming-Na Wen — best known for voicing Mulan in the Disney films alongside roles in ER, The Joy Luck Club and, more recently, the Star Wars franchise — is 61, it might be because she was playing teenagers into her 20s. It also doesn't hurt that, as Wen herself notes, her skin is pore-free. And despite being a Hollywood veteran who has weathered motherhood and menopause — the latter of which 'kicked me in the ass,' she tells me during our call for Yahoo Life's Unapologetically series — the actress has managed to embrace aging while maintaining a youthful spirit. 'I don't know what 61 feels like. I mean, I still feel like I'm in my 30s, I guess,' she says. 'And then there are days when I feel like I'm 14 years old when I meet [someone] like Jackie Chan or when I geek out at Mark Hamill in his Jedi outfit on set. ... It just depends on the circumstances.' Her Karate Kid: Legends co-star Chan, who is 10 years her senior, also set an example for career longevity, Wen says. 'He's still vying for roles, he's still hungry to create stories and content for himself. That's what keeps pushing me,' she shares. Here, she talks about this latest era of her career, her all-natural approach to beauty and why she's excited to play moms after always being cast as daughters. Wow, no, not at all. ... I think the idea that I would have a long career like this is something you dream about. But you never know. Your fear is always, OK, this is my last job, this is all I'm gonna get. And then you just fade off into the sunset. It happens to a lot of actors. So I'm very grateful. [As an Asian American actress] you're constantly just fighting for roles, and especially back then, there were so few and far between. So you're scrambling and your agents are scrambling to try to find parts that were not written specifically for an Asian. And I did, you know, obtain a lot of those roles ... but you were just fighting for scraps back in those days. I feel like it's such a combination of luck, fate, hard work and having the right team of people who believe in you and want to see you succeed. ... Having a belief in yourself, that this is your destiny and that you have to keep pursuing it and not quitting. Those are, I think, some of the elements that keep propelling me. And then I'm always looking for role models [within] each age bracket. I've always looked up to Betty White, especially now. I look up to Jean Smart. You recognize that the possibilities remain endless. I think being a mom has definitely made me a better actor. When you're a mom, you go through so many emotions and so many intense feelings — everything from vulnerability to inner strength to just growing up and being more observant. And also learning from my own children about who they are and who I am. It's definitely made me a better actor. I always played the daughters, or the young girlfriend and the ingenue. Now to be able to play the moms, I think it goes deeper and it gives me a chance to explore a lot of these more vulnerable and yet powerful emotions. I'm looking forward to what else I can dip my toes into. Well, luckily, with my genetics and my Asian genes, I am so grateful now. When I was younger, I was like, Oh, I wish I didn't look so Asian. You know, you don't appreciate being Asian; you just want to fit in. You want to be like the blond, blue-eyed [type] that you see everywhere, that are the 'Miss Popular' or getting all the lead roles. So now I embrace my culture, I embrace who I am. I love the fact that I can play younger roles. When I was in my 20s, I was playing a teenager. So it just perpetuates. I just hope to always be able to work with great, talented people who can not look at age as the factor in hiring, but instead look at what you can bring to the table. It's about the artistry, it's about the talents, as opposed to how many followers you have on social media. There are people out there who see beyond that, and those are the people that I look forward to working with, because they don't set boundaries for themselves. My reality is always and has always been that just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I can't play the role that wasn't specifically written for an Asian. So just because I'm a woman of a certain age now doesn't mean I [can't] play younger. We've got AI, babe. They can freaking transform me into a teenager if they wanted to. And what's so great is that I do have a childlike, Peter Pan sort of mentality. So I still play Mulan all the time. I still voice her all the time. So I do get to be a bit of a teenager whenever I'm Mulan. We are in a world of plastic surgery, Botox and filters to look as [young] as you can — young with no pores. Luckily, I don't have pores. I mean, this is all natural, babe, all natural right there. But I work at it, you know. I eat healthy, I train. I wish I slept better — I don't — but I work out. I make sure that I do my best because [my body] is my instrument. This is what I'm selling and it's important to keep it [in] its best form possible. With aging, I think if you try to fight what is a natural progression and the honor of getting older, the alternative is you're six feet under. [In] my culture, we do revere the elders and I think it's important to look your best, but it's also important to love the beauty of being more natural. So yeah, I don't mind aging. Sometimes it sucks because parts of your body hurt here and there. I think it's really important never to label how you're supposed to feel at any age. I think it's really important to just feel the best you can feel and be the best you can be and just say 'eff that' to that number. You know, I wish that our moms and our grandmothers had the platform to be open about it rather than feeling like they're going crazy or that they're alone in this struggle. It's real. I've never had postpartum [struggles] when I had kids, I never had really, really bad hormonal imbalance during my menstrual cycles. But menopause kicked me in the ass. ... I was getting panic attacks that I've never had before. I would be lethargic and unable to be motivated to even like, I don't know, do dishes or get up. It was scary because there's a part of me, maybe being an actor, where I can always kind of look in on myself. I'm like, This is not me. This is so not me. Something is wrong, something is happening. And so being able to share that and kind of forewarn younger women that if these things happen to you, be on the lookout, there is help out there, there [are] ways to try to rebalance your hormones and it's nothing to be ashamed about. It's a natural part of our body changing. So why should we be ashamed? You know, it would be like being ashamed that our hair grows. It's so bizarre. And that's the other hormonal thing about [menopause]: I have nose hair. Why is this my reward for perpetuating the human species by being able to give birth? Well, I went to see my doctor and got my hormones checked. My testosterone was really low and that's why I had no motivation to do anything. It's crazy that this is so strong in changing your personality, because I've always been someone who was absolutely motivated all the time to do anything, whether it's gardening, whether it's my arts and crafts, whether it's my work, whether it's raising my kids. So that imbalance altered who I am and I didn't like that person. I didn't like not being motivated to do anything. So he gave me some things for rebalancing my hormones. And it really, really helped a lot. I'm trying to embrace social media because I want to make it fun. It's another way to connect with the audience. ... I just started [TikTok], I don't know why. There's a part of me that's so regretting it. My whole persona or brand will be just like, I play all these badasses and I have these beautiful red carpet things, but that's not what comes home. That's what my husband's always saying when he sees me in a magazine. He's like, 'Can she come home some night?' So I want to show the real me where I'm a goofball. My kids will probably be hating it and feel embarrassed. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe that's my goal, is just to embarrass my kids. The advice that I would give to my 30-year-old self is to not give a shit about what other people think. And to cut [those people] out of your lives as soon as possible, or keep them at a very, very good distance. Because those are the people that you don't need to have in your life. I wish I could have appreciated my youth in my 30s. It's so crazy. I look back at some of my pictures in my 30s and I'm like, Why was I so critical of myself? Look at that hot little lady there. You know, it's so crazy. And I try to instill that in my kids and young people, to just really love being your age right now — or at any age, really. Now I think that way about myself. If I'm lucky enough to live as long as my mom — my mom's going to be 90 — if I'm able to live another 30 years, I'm going to look back and go, Shit, what was I complaining about? Being 60 was young. So yeah, if you're lucky enough to live long, appreciate where you're at now. I love that I can right now just live more in the present. I used to always think about the future. I used to always worry about the future. And I love the fact that, knowing that life is precious, I try very hard to be present and be aware of where I'm at and what I'm experiencing.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
As a teen, Soleil Moon Frye's breast reduction made magazine covers. It taught the former 'Punky Brewster' star that 'people want you to stay little forever.'
Soleil Moon Frye has been in the public eye since she was a mismatched-shoed little girl on TV's Punky Brewster in the '80s. At 48, she feels like she's finally coming into her own. 'When we're really young, we have so much of that spark of who we want to be, of what we want to do and then, as life transpires, oftentimes we go on these different roads,' Frye tells Yahoo Life for our Unapologetically series. 'I personally feel like so much of the journey in my life — and this moment — has been guiding me back to who I really am and who I always was. Yet it took the path less traveled to get there.' Frye's path as of late has led her to documentary filmmaking. She helmed Paramount+'s two-part docuseries The Carters: Hurts to Love You, an exploration of how fame, mental illness and addiction led to singer Aaron Carter's death in 2022, told from the perspective of his twin sister, Angel Carter Conrad. Before that, Frye exposed her own experience growing up in Hollywood and losing friends to addiction and suicide in Kid 90, which was released by Hulu in 2021. She's currently completing a documentary about singer Shifty Shellshock, a childhood friend and ex-boyfriend who died from an accidental drug overdose in 2024. The projects come amid a larger period of self-discovery for Frye. She and her husband of more than 20 years, Jason Goldberg, who share four children, divorced in 2022. After their split, Frye reconnected with Crazy Town frontman Shellshock (real name: Seth Binzer), whom she had known as a teen. They went on to date, but ended their relationship prior to his death. 'It's been such a journey getting to this moment in time, and there's been so much love, faith, pain, grief,' she says. 'So many experiences of peeling back the onion.' Frye tells me about some of those layers — from growing up in a world that felt way too comfortable having discussions about her teenage body, to coming into her own as a filmmaker. I'm so thankful to be doing what I love each and every day. It makes me emotional because I love, love, love sharing stories … and to share stories that help create meaningful conversations is truly a dream. [Plus, there's been my own] self-discovery — through Kid 90 and [my old] diaries and what that brought up for me, the documentary [Werewolf and the Waves] I'm working on about [Shellshock] and The Carters, [which] led me into deeper empathy and compassion around looking at addiction as a disease. Every step has led me to right here, right now and I'm really thankful for it. It's been a beautiful, heart-wrenching journey to get here. In my 20s and 30s, there was a lot of wanting to make other people proud. … I cared what other people thought. … [My 40s have] been that process of unlearning and going: I have to do this because I love it and it feeds my soul. For a long time, I cared about what other people thought. I was really fortunate to have an incredible foundation at home and amazing family and friends and I look at our journey of growing up and growing up in the business [as] so colorful. There was so much fun and joy within our friendships. Some of my friends have gone on to have these incredible families and really healthy, exquisite lives and some of my friends didn't make it out. Some had struggles with their families and some had absolutely beautiful, stable families. … When you take mental illness and addiction and you combine that with money and fame and all of these other elements, then that can really implode. So many young people globally are struggling in front of their screens, while somebody else is liking, disliking or calling them out. This is a global crisis. I think about what a sensitive, loving, beautiful heart this young man had — and what becomes that breaking point? That certainly made me look at my own life. I remember wanting to please people and that doesn't even have to be something that your parents or the industry puts on you. It's something that you may put on yourself. But when you layer that, it can become explosive. Right? I had gone through this rapid development so early on as a teenager and feeling that objectification, all those layers. I can't even imagine doing it under the microscope of social media. That's what young people are going through — and I don't think we've begun to scratch the surface on what that looks like and what that means. I know. It's wild because I had [a breast] reduction and so much of that was health reasons — my back, all these different things — and then I remember it made it look like I had [other work done]. People were like, 'Oh, you did this and this and this.' No! What?! But I think we've lived so often in this sensationalist society where we love to build people up, and then we love to break them down. It was so surreal, and so crazy. I think so often when you grow up — and this is something that I related to with Aaron — is that when you play a character [like Punky], people want you to stay little forever. It's like they want to remember you as that little girl or boy. Then we grow up. I know for me, I went through such an awkward stage while trying to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, in such formative years. So, as we were speaking earlier about coming back into myself, it's been such an incredible journey. One of the most incredible things has been that they're like, 'Oh, mom's been on this ride too.' I think that as much as we communicate and share stories about the awkward stages and our bodies, I think so much of it is inside. It's so internal. So you can make changes to your body, but so much of the work is the internal part of it. Something that is most important to me is us having conversations and not brushing things under the rug and looking within to get to the root of our experiences. I live in the bath a lot of the time — and I walk a lot. The last few docs were so intense and I remember there were days when I'd be on Zoom and I'd be like: 'Excuse me' and I'd have to [step away] because of the things that I was seeing or hearing. It was just so emotional. So meditation, walking, those are the things that I that I most lean into — and then my kids' arms. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Soleil Moonfrye (@moonfrye) I feel like I'm graduating from my teens to my 20s. I'm entering my 20s. … I am still such a kid in so many ways. I have this joy for life and discovery and adventure and excitement that feels incredibly youthful — and at the same time, this incredible gratitude and appreciation for the experience. Sometimes I'll look at pictures of when I was in my teens and 20s, and I'm like, Look at that young woman and how beautiful and full of life she is. I really didn't see it at the time. I had so many insecurities. … I cared about what the world thought. I didn't have that level of self-love, so I wasn't really able to appreciate the beauty of what was. So I've really made it a point for myself, in this moment, that I really want to appreciate all the different versions of myself, so that when I'm 80, 90 or 100 years old, looking back, I can be like, Wow, you really were able to feel that moment and appreciate [it]. That's something that I work on on a regular basis. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
