Halle Berry is once again turning the spotlight on perimenopause. The actress recently shared how her doctor misdiagnosed her condition as herpes, causing her and her partner to engage in the blame game. For Berry, a passionate advocate for women’s health, telling this story was too good an opportunity to pass up in a bid to shed more light on the struggles women face.
Halle Berry Talks About Perimenopause Struggles
Halle Berry was at the A Day of Unreasonable Conversation event in Los Angeles in 2024 when she shared her struggle with perimenopause. She told the audience how her doctor didn’t know what was wrong with her and guessed wrongly. Berry said she went to the doctor after waking up one morning feeling like there were “razor blades” in her vagina. This was after a night of sex with her partner, Van Hunt, and the doctor concluded she had the “worst case of herpes” he’d ever seen.
“He says, ‘Halle, you have a new guy, right?’ I said, ‘I do, I’m really excited.’ He said, ‘You messed up again… You have the worst case of herpes I have ever seen,” she recalled.
The Union actress added:
“Neither one of us has herpes…I realized, after the fact, that [the sensation] is a symptom of perimenopause. My doctor had no knowledge and didn’t prepare me. That’s when I knew, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve gotta use my platform. I have to use all of who I am and I have to start making a change and a difference.'”
What Is Perimenopause?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, perimenopause is the transitional phase before menopause. Estrogen levels start to decrease during this period, and the individual may begin to have menopause-like symptoms, such as hot flashes or irregular periods. Perimenopause can last for years, and it typically starts about eight to 10 years before menopause. Meanwhile, Halle Berry told Drew Barrymore this week that she and Hunt spent 72 hours not knowing she was going through perimenopause and not herpes. They spent three days blaming each other and wondering where they got it.
“And then, a couple hours after that, my doctor called me and said, ‘You do not have herpes,'” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘OK, then what is it?'”
However, her doctor was still ignorant.
“He said, ‘I don’t know. That’s what it looked like,'” She recollected.
Berry shared that her doctor not knowing the symptoms of perimenopause was a “defining moment” for her, and it “sent me on my own reconnaissance and my own researching.”
Halle Berry And Drew Barrymore Share Perimenopause Experience
Halle Berry added that getting intimate with Hunt after her perimenopause symptoms began was a struggle.
“I did have about six months or seven months, we struggled with finding a way to have sex again, getting rid of the dryness, making it more enjoyable — because it got pretty rough for a minute,” the Cat Woman actress said.
Drew Barrymore also weighed in on Halle Berry’s struggles with perimenopause. She noted that having sex while going through the phenomenon was like having “sandpaper” in the vagina.
Berry agreed but shared that it was “Razor blades” for her. Barrymore then shed some light on how perimenopause affects women’s mental and sexual. She said:
“There’s also a tremendous mental game that goes with that, which is, I don’t wanna put myself through that. Well, that’s very hard for partners because they don’t know what you’re going through, and they don’t know why you don’t wanna engage in physicality, which can put a giant chasm in your relationship.”
Halle Berry And Drew Barrymore Call For More Female Care
In their conversation about perimenopause, Halle Berry and Drew Barrymore agreed that there needs to be more awareness about issues women face. Barrymore noted that women “need more care, more conversation, more attention in the government, medically, insurance-wise, on commercials, so that we can talk about this and make it benign.” Her guest agreed, saying that “Conversation is key” to bringing the needed change.
Halle Berry also asked women to be more open with their partners about perimenopause so they could better understand the issue. Meanwhile, the actress has been educating people on perimenopause for a while and even launched a brand, Respin, which she described as an “empowering community redefining menopause and female longevity.”
Halle Berry’s revelation about her doctor misdiagnosing perimenopause gives insight into the need for greater awareness of issues women struggle with. Hopefully, her recent conversation, which has already been well received by women, will draw the needed attention and bring change.
#Clique, what do you think of Halle Berry’s revelations? Let us know in the comments.
