Rachel Ward has never been happier than she is now, and it's all thanks to the beauty of aging gracefully. The former actress and model, now 68, appeared makeup-free for an interview with ABC News about the criticism she's received for her appearance and why she chooses to embrace her maturing features in a world that tells her to do the opposite.
"I was a catalyst for a conversation that I think people had been challenged by," she said in a clip shared to Instagram. "Women weren't allowed to have a wrinkle, weren't allowed to go gray. Why do we feel we've got to pretend that we're still 40 when we're 68?"
"The more wretched I looked, the more followers I had," she admitted. "How ironic that my going gray actually garnered me more attention than if I'd taken my top off."
Although online fame has come with negative comments, when Ward – who traded set life for farm life – made a video about her venture FarmThru, she received a flood of comments about her appearance. In a separate Instagram video, she embraced her image by saying, "Dear those of you who responded to the brouhaha over the trolls criticizing my appearance, I have tried to do a little better today. I ran my hands through my hair, etc., but anyways, just to say, do not fear aging."
She gained support from Kyle Richards and Sharon Stone. "A few trolls were a bit shocked about my gray hair, who maybe hadn't seen me since I was 24, and then went, 'Oh my God, that's what you end up looking like,'" she told ABC News in reaction to the responses.
Ward, who starred in the British miniseries The Thorn Birds, reflected on coming up in the early '80s when "everything was about sexuality and the male gaze." "It's very empty, and it's very unsatisfying. It took me a long time to feel that I had value as a woman," she said in the clip. In the full interview, she added that it's "terrifying" to be "sexual beings" and to "have to have our bums lifted and our breasts lifted and our faces drawn back. It just becomes grotesque."
Today, she's content and particularly in love with this stage of her life. "I'm so past caring about what people think about one's appearance or age," she said. "All I want to hear is, 'Actually, Rachel's cows are looking pretty good.'"
