Demi Moore Felt Unwanted in Hollywood After Charlie’s Angels Bikini Scene

Demi Moore is opening up about how Hollywood treats women after the age of 40.

In a sit-down interview with Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh for Interview magazine to promote her upcoming film The Substance, the 61-year-old actress recalled how she handled the criticism she received following her iconic Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle bikini scene.

“What’s interesting is I felt it more [Hollywood beauty norms] when I hit my forties. I had done Charlie’s Angels, and there was a lot of conversation around this scene in a bikini, and it was all very heightened, a lot of talk about how I looked,” Moore said before adding that she struggled to find her place in the industry following the film.

“And then I found that there didn’t seem to be a place for me. I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. It’s more like I felt that feeling of, I’m not 20, I’m not 30, but I wasn’t yet what they perceived as a mother.”

Yeoh made headlines for discussing Hollywood’s standards during her Academy Award speech after winning Best Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2023, saying “that we can define where we want it to go and who we are.”

The 62-year-old actress related to Moore, asking, “Where do you fit in?”

“Yeah, where do I fit in? It was a time that felt, not dead, but flat,” Moore agreed.

“Hollywood is cruel to women of that age, where you don’t find the scripts or the characters that resonate with you anymore. It’s either, you are the mother or you’re old enough not to be sexy in their eyes,” Yeoh continued.

“It’s like, why can’t a 45-year-old, a 50-year-old, or 60-year-old, be sexy? But that whole perception is undergoing a lot of change because people like you and me won’t sit back and just take it.”

Moore’s new horror film, The Substance, explores these themes. Moore plays Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle who uses an experimental drug advertised to create a younger version of herself, who is played by Margaret Qualley.

“I read the script, because it was such a unique way to be exploring this issue of aging, of societal conditioning, of what I also see as the pressure of the male-idealized woman that we as women have bought into,” Moore told Yeoh earlier in their interview.

“At the core of it, what it’s really about is what we do to ourselves, and I loved that it was illustrated in such a physical way — showing that violence with what we do with our thoughts, how we attack ourselves and distort things.”

The Substance is in theaters on Sept. 20, 2024.