A listener production.
Hello there, my lovely listeners.
What are you doing?
Are you having a cup of coffee?
Are you lying in bed?
Are you driving your car?
Whatever you do, I hope it is something fabulous
because I've jumped into your big talk feed
and what I'm going to be doing is talking with you
about something that has been on my mind.
My big question that I have for you this week.
Drum roll from Nick, my lovely producer.
And the big question is,
are we brave if we embrace our grey sparkles?
And when I say grey sparkles, I mean our grey hair.
Now, what got me thinking about this is,
you know, during COVID for many of us,
we couldn't get to the hairdresser forever.
We couldn't do a lot of things
that we would normally enjoy doing.
You, I'm sure, were like me.
You saw those greys.
Some of you, you saw them emerge for the first time.
I have to confess, I had no idea how grey I was
when I couldn't get to the hairdresser for over four months.
I had this sort of badger stripe of grey
and thankfully, my darling husband
coloured the rest of it pink.
So I had this pink and then grey badger stripe.
I don't know how flattering it was,
but it did get me through the lockdown.
So I embraced those grey sparkles briefly
and I'll talk with you a little more about that later.
But what I want to talk about now is who has embraced it?
Who has been brave to embrace those grey sparkles?
Well, one beautiful Hollywood superstar who has
is Andie McDowell.
And I'm sure you know Andie McDowell.
She starred in Four Weddings and a Funeral
with that wonderful Hugh Grant.
Hi, you're soaking.
No, no, I'm fine, I'm fine.
Comes a point when you're so wet, you can't get any wetter.
Okay, I'll come up.
No, please don't.
I just want to check you're okay.
It was actually one of my husband's favourite movies.
He loves a rom-com.
Can you believe it?
I prefer sci-fi, but Petey's into the rom-coms.
Anyway, Andie McDowell was in that movie
with those glorious dark curly tresses of hair,
just the most beautiful woman.
And so she started to see a whole lot more grey hair
coming through during the COVID lockdown in the States.
And she decided, you know what?
I'm actually loving the way this is looking.
This actually is fitting me more.
Andie was interviewed and she said it actually felt like
this was how she was meant to look.
It matched her face.
It matched the stage that she was at in her life.
So she's kept her hair grey,
even though her manager had said to her,
oh, I don't know if it's the right time
for you to be doing this.
And she basically said back to him,
well, when is the right time?
This is how I look.
I want to embrace who I am.
And so she did an amazing star turn
on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet
and she's kept her hair grey.
She's rocking other movies and catwalks
and she just looks fantastic.
Someone else who is embracing sort of the grey side of life
is Sarah Jessica Parker.
Now this is a woman who knows fashion.
She just gets it right all the time.
But what I kind of like about what she said
about her grey hair is that there was a paparazzi picture
taken of her sitting on a table,
actually not sitting on the table,
but sitting at a table at a restaurant in New York.
And the paparazzi sort of zoned in on her hairline.
And basically the headline was how brave she was
for embracing her grey hair.
And she sort of came out and said,
please, this is not brave.
Plenty of people do brave things.
Keeping your hair grey isn't brave.
And she also sort of added a disclaimer saying,
I haven't decided to make my hair totally grey.
She was doing what they call in New York City,
the herringbone colour.
Now for those of you who don't know,
and I didn't, I had to Google it,
but it's apparently when you have highlights
in between the grey.
So basically you don't need to be going to the hairdresser
every couple of weeks.
Apparently Sarah Jessica just goes
every two and a half months.
So she's got the grey in amongst some sort of blonde streaks.
But the point that she really wanted to make
about this particular picture
was next to her at the table was Andy Cohen.
Now I'm a huge fan of all the Real Housewives franchises.
And Andy Cohen is the brains,
the producer behind all of that.
And I think he also happens to be Sarah Jessica's best friend.
So they were photographed together.
Andy Cohen has a full head of grey hair.
And Sarah Jessica said nothing was made of Andy's grey hair,
but everything was made of the fact
that she had a few bits of grey sneaking through.
All the articles were Sarah Jessica Parker's,
you know, she's going grey and she looks old.
And it was insanity.
And here she is sitting next to me who's grey.
And people just missed the mark totally.
It was so misogynistic.
And she was so right.
So of course, here raises that issue,
that curly question of the double standards
between men and women.
And we know that's the case, don't we?
I mean, when we see a guy with the grey hair,
you know, the George Clooney look,
we think, oh, silver fox.
And I mean, he is a silver fox, isn't he?
He's pretty sexy.
Patrick Dempsey, who was Dr. McDreamy,
he sort of got those lovely, the grey coming through now.
And nothing is made of the colour of these blokes' hair.
Whereas with women, it's kind of like,
oh my goodness, what does this mean?
And oh, is it a new trend?
And oh, you're being brave?
And all of that sort of nonsense.
I don't think it is about being brave.
I think it's about feeling comfortable in your own skin,
whatever it is you decide to do.
As I said at the start of this chat,
I had a lot of grey peeking through during COVID.
And no, it wasn't just peeking through.
It was there, very, very grey.
Do you know the first thing I did
when the lockdowns finally lifted?
I went to the hairdresser.
That was the very first thing I did.
I didn't see friends or family.
I saw my hairdresser,
who I joke is actually the longest person,
or the man actually that I've had
the longest relationship with in my life.
He has been doing my hair for, oh my goodness,
So I was so excited to go back to being blonde.
I didn't want to be grey.
I have though coloured my hair, not quite grey,
but sort of a bluey colour, which I loved.
Because as it faded,
it went to this lovely kind of greyy blue colour.
The only issue was Petey,
because he would say,
oh, pussycat, I think I have to drop you off
at the nursing home around the corner.
So would I go back to that greyy blue?
I reckon I would.
I don't think though I would grow my hair out to be grey,
because I would find that, I don't know,
a bit flat looking.
It's not about feeling, oh, that would make me look old.
I just prefer a bit more vibrancy
in the colour of my hair.
And someone who I think also
has had a bit of fun with colour recently
and is known for his hair is Osher Ginsburg.
Now Osher is a really great friend of the podcast,
I interviewed him and he is just the most incredibly open,
beautiful, fabulous man.
And he also has a mighty mane of hair.
And often his hair attracts even more headlines
than the shows that he's hosting.
He had that sort of peroxided blondie sort of surfer look
when he did Australian Idol.
And then when he was doing The Bachelor,
oh my goodness, the quiff, that wonderful quiff that he has,
it just got bigger and more fabulous
and just wonderful looking.
But recently what he did with this famous hair of his
is he went this sort of icy blonde grey colour.
I love it on him because it's fun.
I mean, let's face it, having your hair a certain colour,
to me it's just another form of self-expression.
So I loved what Osher did.
But you know, as people will be,
there was some negative comments,
which he kind of hit back really quite nicely
at some people who told him that he looked like a grandma.
I didn't think he did at all.
I thought he looked fabulous.
And also too, I'm sure he's probably thinking,
I'm not doing any filming of The Bachelor at the moment.
That's coming back next year.
So I am gonna have a bit of fun and lightness with my hair.
So that's what I want you to do, beautiful listeners.
Have some fun with your hair.
Don't think, oh, do I need to be brave and embrace the grey?
No, just be brave and be you.
I think do you, do what feels right for you.
It might be letting your hair grow out,
having that, you know, few wonderful grey hairs
coming through, or it might be covering the greys.
It might be going platinum blonde or blonde or brown
or a dark witch chestnut.
Whether it's long or short, grey, platinum,
all the colours of the rainbow,
just do what is right for you.
So I don't think that big question in terms of,
are we brave if we embrace our grey sparkles?
No, it's not about being brave.
It's just about leading a big, fabulous, noisy,
And I know for all of my beautiful listeners,
that is what you do.
I like to think about who you are listening,
where you are listening from,
as I mentioned at the very start.
And many of you are listening from right around Australia,
from all different parts of the world.
And I was lucky enough to catch up
with some beautiful listeners just recently,
up in far North Queensland.
I hung out at Charters Towers
and met some really great women
who were doing extraordinary things.
So, wonderful listeners.
I love you to bits.
DM me, slip into my DMs.
Let me know where you're listening from.
Let me know the colour of your hair.
Let me know what it means to be brave to you.
So whatever it is that you're doing,
be brave, be bold, and I love you to bits.