Building a Menopause Brand: Naomi Watts on HRT, Hot Flashes & Hollywood

unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Mary Claire Media, LLC

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on unPaused, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Naomi Watts, Academy Award nominated actress, entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling author of Dare I Say It. Naomi's career spans decades in Hollywood, from her breakthrough role in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive to recent work with directors like Ryan Murphy and Lena Dunham. After receiving a shocking early menopause diagnosis at 36 while struggling with fertility, Naomi spent years navigating untreated symptoms in silence before becoming an unexpected advocate for millions of women facing midlife transitions. In 2021, she founded Stripes Beauty, a menopause focused skincare and wellness brand built on community, education, and celebrating womens earned wisdom rather than promising to reverse time. In this conversation, Dr. Haver and Naomi explore the reality of growing up across continents after losing her father at eight years old, the decade long struggle to break into Hollywood, and the moment at 30 when her acting career finally launched. Naomi opens up about the devastating news from her doctor that she was approaching menopause at 36, the desperate fertility journey that followed including traveling to China for herbal remedies and extreme dietary changes, and the perimenopause symptoms she dismissed as allergies or stress in her late twenties including night sweats, migraines, brain fog, and sleep disruption. Guest links: Naomi Watts (Instagram) Naomi Watts (IMDB) Stripes Beauty Other Resources Davina McCall (Instagram) Stacy London (Instagram) Dr. Jen Gunter Books “Inconceivable, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Woman's Triumph over Despair and Statistics,” by Julia Indichova “Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I'd Known About Menopause,” by Naomi Watts“The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver ⁠"The New Menopause"⁠ by Dr. Mary Claire Haver To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So you decide to do a brand around menopause.
0:07.0	Yes, and that's where we met.
0:08.2	Did you get pushback?
0:09.3	I wasn't listening to the pushback.
0:11.0	I was listening to myself.
0:12.6	That was, you know, like I'm sure you've had a moment, you know, you've had ideas that you've percolated for several months, possibly years, you know,
0:22.2	and you test the waters with your contemporaries. I'm sure that most people, when they come up
0:28.3	with an idea, just like comedians go out and test their jokes. Yeah. We think it through. We test
0:33.5	through our friends. And I was, I was getting met with, you know, like, no, no, no, no, you're not in menopause. You're far too young, you know, like, or, ah, ha, ha, don't be silly. You know, like, if I would say, you know, oh, I'm having an estrogen dip, I would, I would be getting plenty of messaging from those around me that this isn't a real thing.
0:55.5	Don't go there.
0:56.3	Kind of, you know, I'm not willing to talk about it.
0:59.0	So why should you?
0:59.8	So I definitely kept it tight for a long time.
1:15.3	The views and opinions expressed on pause-paws are those of the talent and guests alone and are provided for informational and entertainment purposes only.
1:18.8	No part of this podcast or any related materials are intended to be a substitute for
1:23.4	professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
1:27.0	Three and a half years ago, I was invited to consult on a new brand that was being developed
1:31.7	in the menopause space by my guest today, the Academy Award nominated actress and now
1:36.2	entrepreneur and author Naomi Watts.
1:38.7	She was building this brand after her own personal struggles with menopause.
1:42.4	At the time, I was still at practicing OBGYN
1:44.9	running a very new small menopause clinic with just a modest social media following.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mary Claire Media, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mary Claire Media, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.