Andie MacDowell, 63, on embracing age and graying hair: 'Women are tired of the idea that you can't get old and be beautiful'

Andie MacDowell is owning her truth from the inside out, and she’s loving every minute of it.

In an interview with The Zoe Report, the actress, 63, got candid about her opinions on the beauty standards women face, opening up about her journey toward embracing her sexy (and natural) salt and pepper hair, which began after having an epiphany during the pandemic.

"I'd been wanting to do it for a few years," she explained of embracing her natural hair color. "And then when COVID happened and I saw the roots coming in, I thought it suited me."

MacDowell, who's been a L'Oréal brand ambassador now for 35 years, said she began coloring her hair at 40 years old after a journalist eyed her gray roots during an interview. Now, 23 years later, she's embracing a new philosophy — and having the last laugh.

"I think women are tired of the idea that you can’t get old and be beautiful," she said. "Men get old and we keep loving them. And I want to be like a man. I want to be beautiful and I don’t want to screw with myself to be beautiful."

"I don't want to sound arrogant, but I love my hair so much that I look in the mirror and I go, 'Oh my god.' It’s so pretty," she continued. "Men can go salt and pepper. We just think thery'e gorgeous. We’ve been sold this idea that they’re better than we are. It’s bulls**t!"

The actress turned heads in July when she debuted her new look on the Cannes red carpet. Admittedly, she was "scared that people would be mean," she explained. "I read all the comments."

Instead, the response to her new look ended up having the opposite effect, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans: "Andie MacDowell's confident, gorgeous spray of gray is lighting me up inside," one tweeted.

"Aging beautifully," another wrote, while one person added, "I support Andie's gray hair 100%. Beautiful back in the day and today."

While she's over trying to meet the world's unrealistic beauty standards, overcoming decades of anxiety is still a work in progress.

"I'm still working on my anxiety," she said. "It's hard to get rid of so much PTSD. It's in your bones and it's in your nervous system for sure. But I look at the bright side: I can use it, I can tap into that."