At 62, Demi Moore is being celebrated as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year — and she’s using the moment not to showcase a look, but to spotlight something far deeper: the desexualisation of older women and the resilience of reinvention in a youth-obsessed industry.
Demi Moore recently reflected on her hair journey, saying: “Yeah, I think after I shaved my head when I did G.I. Jane, which was a very powerful experience on many levels, but I just started to let it grow.”
She expanded: “And it also kind of coincided with stepping back from work to be with my kids. I just started to let my hair grow. And I think probably because I’m also lazy and I don’t like to sit in the chair or have to go and get it done a lot."
She made a powerful statement, confronting ageist norms head-on: “[We often hear] that as women get older, they shouldn’t have long hair. And for some reason, to me, I didn’t buy it. I didn’t believe it, and it didn’t make sense to me why that had to be the case. And I did notice, particularly women who were going through menopause, that they were.... I was looking around and seeing that they all were kind of cutting their hair in a very almost masculine way, just desexualising themselves. And so I think there was a combination of this attachment to it too. I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’ve just willed it.”
These insights form part of a larger conversation around identity, aging, and worth — a conversation she is now revisiting with renewed force thanks to her starring role in The Substance.
Moore’s ever-present companion, Pilaf, also made an appearance in the Glamour shoot — a tiny micro chihuahua who has become something of a fixture in her public life. Often seen perched in her arms at red carpet events or lounging beside her during interviews, Pilaf represents a softer, humorous side to the actress’s current era. The dog even features on Moore’s social media, travelling everywhere from film sets to award shows. In the Glamour feature, Pilaf was cradled by Moore as she posed in a burnt-orange gown — a tender image that subtly underscored her mix of glamour and grounded warmth.
Though Moore has long been a familiar name, her status as a cultural force has surged with her performance as Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. In the film, Sparkle is a middle-aged celebrity who resorts to injections of a drug to reclaim youth, splitting into a younger self (played by Margaret Qualley) and fracturing into a horror metaphor about obsession and self-loathing.
It’s the kind of provocative, genre-bending material that few actresses in their 60s would normally get offered — and Moore delivered in spades. Her work earned Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and SAG Awards, along with her first ever Academy Award nomination.
Moore openly acknowledged the turnaround. In an interview she said of the acclaim: “It’s unreal and wonderful. I feel this hesitance to even respond to it, almost.”
She described her lack of formal training, too, admitting early on she often felt like she was “flying by the seat of my pants,” but added that maturity has given her a deeper confidence: “I learned from other actors. I learned from watching, listening, and experiencing.” In past interviews, she’s also spoken powerfully about the difference between external “failures” and internal worth: “If something didn’t go exactly as I’d like or wasn’t what I had hoped for, [I now know,] ‘Yeah, that was a disappointment, but I’m not a disappointment.’”
Moore has weathered public scrutiny, whispers about her career choices, and harsh labels. At the 2025 Golden Globes, she addressed that history directly, including a moment when a producer once dismissed her as a “popcorn actress.” She used that backhanded remark as a launching point, saying:
“In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough – or basically, just not enough – I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know, you will never be enough. But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’”
She went on: “Today, I celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness and of the love that is driving me. For the gift of doing something I love and being reminded that I do belong, thank you so much.”
