Demi Moore turns 60 on November 11. On the one hand, this seems logical – she has been on our screens since the mid-1980s and has three adult children.
On the other, a quick scan of her Instagram makes this seem improbable – absurd, even.
Nobody seems to have cheated the ageing process quite as well as Moore. With her long, dark hair, wrinkle-free skin and toned, slim limbs, she does not look merely a decade younger than she is, but as if she is from an entirely different generation.
For once, the old compliment, “I thought you were sisters!”, handed out to women who are with their daughters, is entirely appropriate.
Hundreds of articles have been dedicated to asking quite how Moore has managed this feat. It appears to be a mixture of Los Angeles-style mindfulness, good old healthy eating and regular exercise (and, who knows, a few surgical interventions?).
Moore herself says that looking on the bright side of life has had a major beneficial impact on her appearance (something, surely, we can all do).
“I do believe that when we hold upset, anger, hurt, pain or bitterness, it ages us and we wear it,” she said in an interview with W magazine. “That isn’t to say we are always going to feel happy. But it’s important not to hold on to things.”
Exercise-wise, she credits daily yoga and a technique called the Mirror method. Mirror is a hi-tech workout product that bills itself as an “interactive home gym”, according to Mirror founder and former chief executive Brynn Putnam.
Installed in your house, it looks like a normal mirror, but streams live and on-demand fitness classes from a variety of workout genres – like Peloton, but without the bike.
And then there is her avoidance of alcoholic drinks. Moore has had a roller-coaster relationship with alcohol, drinking in her 20s, giving up in her 30s, and then starting again in her 40s before swearing off it for good. Not that she does not miss it.
“I guess I would think of it like this,” she said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “It was really important to me to have natural childbirth because I didn’t want to miss a moment. And with that I experienced pain. So part of being sober is, I don’t want to miss a moment of life, of that texture, even if that means being in some pain.”
Having been in the public eye since she was in her 20s, Moore is, of course, familiar with the more painful side effects of fame. She has become something of an icon, and with many images of her from the 20th century in particular having become globally famous, there is a pressure to look a certain way.
She was already famous when she married actor Bruce Willis in 1987; that, and the release of Ghost in 1990, propelled her into the big leagues.
The 1990s began with what is probably the most iconic image of Moore – her appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair, naked while heavily pregnant with her daughter Scout in 1991.
“I remember it very well,” Moore said in a conversation with Naomi Campbell for the supermodel’s No Filter series on YouTube.
“I understand what impact it had on the world. On women, on our permission to embrace ourselves in a pregnant state. But it was a moment that I was taking to really be in myself and be expressing myself, and not trying to be anything other than me.”
Her career grew rapidly after this and she starred in some of the highest grossing films of the decade: in all of them, she played the beautiful main character and her thick, dark hair was a major part of her identity as a global sex symbol.
This is why the world was shocked when she shaved it all off for her role in 1997 film GI Jane. When she, Willis and two of their children arrived at the Striptease premiere in 1996, Moore had a buzz cut (filming on GI Jane had just begun) and the world was captivated.
By the time of the GI Jane premiere later that year, the actress’ hair had grown into a pixie cut that she would keep for five years and which would become a major international trend.
By the early 2000s, Moore’s relationship with Willis had broken down and she was now involved with the much younger Ashton Kutcher. Her entire look was transformed in this period.
Gone were the pixie cut and plunging necklines and in their place were her now trademark long, dark locks, a walnut tan and a series of shorter and shorter minidresses.
Now this is the look Moore is known for. At certain points she has arguably taken her adherence to it too far, most notably on the Fendi catwalk last year, where guests were shocked by her appearance.
In what looked to some like the result of too much plastic surgery, her cheekbones protruded almost ghoulishly from her face as she sashayed up and down the runway in an off-the-shoulder dress.
People close to her have claimed it was the lighting or her make-up that caused her to look like that – but clearly Moore took note; more recent photos have shown her back to her usual dazzling self.
One shot in particular that she shared recently showed her looking more beautiful than ever in a black bikini with long, glossy hair.
If this is 60, then bring it on …