Maria Bello, Luke Wilson, Cindy Crawford have differing feelings about their 'midlife crisis'
Hollywood stars approach midlife in different ways.
Actress Maria Bello, 56, recently shared that "crisis is actually a gift" as she celebrates her midlife.
In 2021, actor Luke Wilson admitted he started "to feel panicky about some stuff" as he approached his 50th birthday.
Cindy Crawford was navigating stress in her life in 2022 and even went as far as hiring a "coach" as she questioned if she was going through a midlife crisis.
ACTRESS MARIA BELLO CELEBRATES HAVING A MIDLIFE CRISIS, SAYS SHE'S ‘CROSSED OVER’
Here is a look at stars who have talked about their own ways of entering another chapter of their lives.
Bello admitted she needed to take a step back to realize that her midlife was not something to cause a panic.
"I never meant to take a pause, but the pause took me first," Bello recently told People magazine. "I started menopause at the beginning of COVID, and two years into it, I felt like I was just going to die.
"I had the opportunity to move to Paris with Dominique [Crenn, her fiancée], and I said, ‘Stop. Just pause.’ I paused my social media, traveling, some work. ... I realized a crisis is actually a gift to us at midlife, to take a step back, to reevaluate. So, I went back on social media to talk about my findings. I feel more peace than I’ve ever had."
Bello returned to Instagram in December after a two-year break. She told the outlet she turned to social media to share what she learned about peace while she was away and wanted to explore questions she had about midlife.
"The only thing that I'd heard about midlife was 'midlife crisis,' ‘menopause,' these phrases that denoted this horrible time in your life. I wanted to know, ‘How would I take that construct using [Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl] Jung’s principles and make it into something that I could relish and grow with and grow into?’"
To Bello's surprise, men were actually helped her the most. Her "midlife midwives," were her "three old men friends that are over 80."
"They really helped me," Bello shared. "They all have such a sense of humor and such grace. And every time I would call my one [friend] and say like, 'Oh my God, I feel like crap. What else is there?' He'd say, 'Go take a walk. If you're feeling down, just look up.' They told me about their own crossing over and what that looked like for them. We're all going through it."
The "it" she was referring to was growing older, something Bello has reprogrammed herself to view as a gift rather than a curse. Now that the actress celebrates having successfully "crossed over into the second half."
"The sort of running to stop the aging process, to try this and the machines and the cellulite creams and the diets and the this and the that? You suddenly realize wherever you go, there you are," she said.
"You take yourself with you wherever you go. Just because my skin looks a little tighter at that midlife point – when I was really down, disillusioned and depressed inside – it didn't help a thing."
As Wilson approached his 50th birthday in 2021, he took a moment to reflect on his past birthdays, which, he said, "had really no impact on me."
"Thirty didn't matter to me. Forty didn't matter to me," Wilson told People magazine at the time. "I just steamrolled right through it, but 50. I don't know if it's getting to me because I am sore when I wake up in the middle of the night and I am forgetting the names of people I know.
"So, I don't know. It's definitely one of those things has had me thinking, 'Oh, OK. So this is where the phrase midlife crisis comes from.' I'm definitely starting to feel panicky about some stuff."
In 2022, Crawford, 57, laughed with Haute Living magazine when she mentioned she might be "going through a midlife crisis."
"I started working with a coach this year, and one of the things that she speaks to me about is time," Crawford explained to the outlet.
"Specifically, where do I feel constricted, and where is it stressing me out? I’m a planner, and very, very organized; I’m the type that gives myself exactly the amount of time I need for any specific activity."
Crawford detailed what a typical day in her life looks like before admitting she was overdoing certain aspects of her life.
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"Let’s say I finish my workout at 9:30 and have my first call of the day at 10. So, I have a half hour to shower and get myself together," Crawford explained. "But, say, my husband wants to have a conversation with me. I found that I’d be looking at my watch, like, ‘I have three minutes,’ and then he would get irritated.
"Or I would feel the stress of knowing that now I wasn’t going to have time to put makeup on. It never occurred to me to maybe push my first meeting back a little because I was just so focused on being efficient."
Crawford married her husband, Rande Gerber, in 1998.
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"For so long, the only way for me to do everything that I wanted to do was to pencil it in," Crawford said.
"For instance, I always enjoyed being the first one up in the house, even when my kids were little, because I needed that 20 minutes where no one needed anything from me. So, I would get up early and have an outdoor Jacuzzi, put on gym clothes and get on my email.
"Taking that Jacuzzi meant that I had taken the time to connect with myself. I never really scheduled in unscheduled time, and I think I’m doing more of that. Now, I’m finding ways to give myself more breathing room. And that’s where I’m at in my life, leaving a little bit more cushion for the unexpected."
Crawford wondered if "maybe" she could be having a midlife crisis.
"And I think it's easy to get caught up in these roles and to feel introspective as a result. Like, who am I? I don't know. Maybe I'm just going through a midlife crisis," Crawford added with a laugh.
January Jones has channeled her midlife crisis into a wardrobe revamp.
In August, Jones took to Instagram to share a picture of her new look, which she credited to teenage boys.
"I never expected my midlife crisis to say ‘take all fashion cues from teenage boys’ yet here I am," the "Mad Men" actress captioned the post.
In the picture, January wore a navy and white ringer T-shirt over what appears to be a black slip dress with lace trim. She paired the look with black lace-up boots, gold hoop earrings, black sunglasses and her blonde, pixie-cut hairstyle.