Tracee Ellis Ross stripped down to her underwear in a theater for her 40th birthday
My 45th birthday was this week. I was feeling obligated to celebrate so I decided to set it to private on Facebook and go low key. It worked! I had a nice night out, no one made a big fuss over me, and I got to do it my way. Tracee Ellis Ross is also 45 and doing her own thing. She recently told People Magazine that she feels her most beautiful at this age, even if she doesn’t look her most beautiful (her words and I disagree). She also revealed that, for her 40th birthday, she did a body acceptance exercise where she stripped down to her bra and underwear in front of a theater full of her friends and talked about the body parts that she most disliked. That would be intimidating as hell to me, but it worked for her. She said that she still sees her underarm skin and the skin around her knees as “different” now but she’s ok with that.
For her 40th birthday celebration five years ago, [Tracee Ellis Ross] rented out a theater, filled it with her friends and undressed down to her bra and underwear. She then pointed out the bodily features she disliked.
“I felt like I needed to embrace those parts, and love those parts of me because they were all a part of me and they were beautiful and I have a lot of pride in it,” Ross explained at Chico’s #HowBoldAreYou event at Joe’s Pub in N.Y.C. on Monday night.
Now at age 45, Ross said that she feels “the sexiest and the most beautiful that I’ve ever felt.”
“I don’t say I look my most beautiful, I FEEL my most beautiful and that’s what’s really important to me and I talk a lot about it.”
There are still body parts that stick out for Ross, but she now just recognizes them as “different.”
“Let’s talk about certain things that are confusing at this age,” she said jokingly. “My underarms and the skin around my knees. These are the only complaints I have and they’re not complaints but it’s different, the skin is very different.”
Pointing to her underarms, she added: “What’s happening in this area? It’s fascinating isn’t it? Because the bra is meant to cover this bit but there’s another bit, bit, there’s a whole other bit.”
But Ross said she has finally become the woman she wanted to be as a child.
“You know as a young girl, I had this woman that I dreamt of being, right? And I had her in my head and I would play around with being her in my bedroom and with certain people, but the gift of age is that you actually get to have the boldness and the courage to be that woman, to be that person and I’m experiencing it now and some of the things I’ve discovered in knowing myself is that I actually like myself,” she said.
I found that last paragraph empowering, where she talked about becoming the woman she imagined as a child. I never thought of it that way but it’s true that with age I care less about what other people think and am more inclined to be myself. It’s also true that those flaps under my arms bug me but I’ve never noticed my knee skin! Now I’m going to be looking at that like it’s weird. Could you strip down to your underwear in front of all your friends and family just to discuss your flaws? I don’t even want them to make a fuss over my birthday. My body parts are not up for discussion.
Here she is with Molly Ringwald. Those boots!
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photos credit: WENN and Getty
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