Andie MacDowell earned praise earlier this month when she showed off her beautiful gray hair at Cannes. She now reveals that several members of her team were blue in the face in trying to talk her out of embracing her salt-and-pepper strands.
"My managers had actually said to me, 'It's not time [to go gray],'" she told Vogue. "And I said, 'I think you're wrong, and I'm going to be more powerful if I embrace where I am right now. It's time because in two years I'm going to be 65. If I don't do it now, I won't have the chance to be salt and pepper. I always wanted to be salt and pepper!"
Trying to "please people," Andie, 63, looked into wigs to hide her hair. But she eventually decided to let her gray locks flow naturally, calling it a "power move."
"Once I did it, it was just so clear to me that my instincts were right because I've never felt more powerful," she said. "I feel more honest. I feel like I'm not pretending. I feel like I'm embracing right where I am. I feel really comfortable. And in a lot of ways, I think it's more striking on my face. I just feel like it suits me."
Two things aided her in her hair transformation: one was her family, and the other was the pandemic.
"At the very beginning of quarantine, my hair started growing and every time my kids would see me, they kept telling me I looked badass with my gray hair. When I pulled it up in a bun, all you could see was the salt and pepper, which is what I am, you know, dark and silver," she said. "I like to compare myself to George Clooney because why not? I've been saying for a while now it was time for me, personally, to make that transition because I felt like it was appropriate for my personality and just who I am."
In doing some research, she found some inspiration in other high-profile women who have happily gone gray.
"I don't want people to have the expectation that I need to look younger to have value or to be beautiful or desirable," she said. "We don't do that to men! We love an older man. We love men as they age. I would love the same expectation for women, and we're getting there … you know, baby steps."