Tracee Ellis Ross beautifully summed up her feelings on getting older at an event by clothing brand Chico, which celebrated its campaign on being unafraid to be bold. 

“For me, turning 45, as a young girl, I had this woman that I dreamt of being. I had her in my head and I’d play around with her in my head and with certain people,” she said, reports Health.

“But the gift of age is that you actually get to have the boldness to be that person, to be that woman. And I am experiencing it now. And some of the things that I have discovered in knowing myself is that I actually like myself.”

Cameron Diaz literally wrote the book on how getting older doesn’t have to mean losing your identity. Her 2013 bestseller The Longevity Book explores the taboo around female ageing, and seven years later at 47, she’s just embarked on the exciting adventure of becoming a mum for the first time.

Speaking at the release of her book, she previously said: “I have another 40 years in me, at least. Why am I all of a sudden going to be afraid to live the rest of my life because I’m not 25? It’s up to me to embrace that. It’s up to me to say, ‘No, you don’t get to say that to me.’

“I’m going to do the best work I’ve ever done. I’m going to live better than I’ve ever lived. I’m going to love better than I’ve ever loved. And you’re going to value me more than you ever valued me at 25.”

When Nicole Kidman won a SAG award for her role as Celeste in HBO series Big Little Lies, she used the opportunity to empower older women and call out Hollywood’s ageism issue.

“20 years ago, we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives. That’s not the case now,” she said.

“We’ve proven that we are potent and powerful and viable. I just beg that the industry stays behind us, because our stories are finally being told. We have proven that we can do this, we can continue to do this, but only with the support of this industry and that money and passion.”

Jennifer Lopez has, in the last 12 months, pulled off an award-winning performance that tested her physical strength to a new limit as Ramona in Hustlers and performed one of the most talked about, high energy half-time show’s ever at the Super Bowl. She also turned 50 last July. 

Speaking to ES Magazine about entering this new decade, Lopez confirms what we all already suspected – she won’t be slowing down anytime soon, in fact, she’s speeding up.

“Did I think I would be doing this at 50? I didn’t think I’d stop, but I didn’t know that it would be the best moment of my life. We’re conditioned to think, as women, that it would be over by now.

“And the truth is, it’s not like that at all. I find myself growing and getting better every year and that’s exciting.”

Minnie Driver recently spoke out about the spate of media outlets proclaiming that for women, 50 is the new version of a different age.

Taking to Twitter, the actor wrote: “Sick of this ‘50 is the new…’ [because] 50 has always been 50. Women were previously just expected to shrivel and accept their husk.”

She added: “I suppose it must be terrifying to a lot of men if we actually burned brighter, hotter, more ambitious and emancipated from shame, the older we got.”

Tyra Banks has continued to defy the pressures put upon women in the public eye with her irrepressible body positivity, and when asked about ageist trolls she had a very clear message: “When people are saying negative things about age, they have serious age, personal insecurities. 

“And I actually really feel for that person that is being very ageist and is saying something very negative because when age starts to hit them, it is going to be traumatic. And so what they’re doing is they’re throwing that negativity that they feel about their fears about ageing onto you.”

Speaking on an episode of Goop’s podcast, The Beauty Closet, the actor and entrepreneur unpicked how getting older aesthetically can effect women’s mental health, after being objectified for so long.

“It’s a weird thing to be […] objectified,” she said. “I think when you come to age, if you have this broad identity as that, what does it mean to get wrinkles and, like, get closer to menopause, and all these things?”

“I think you get to a point where it’s almost like your sort of pulchritude is waning in a way and your inner beauty is, like, really coming out, and so it’s this funny shift that’s happening,” she said.

“I think for me it’s more internally feeling,” she continued. “You know, as I go on in life and I feel more and more myself and less judgmental about myself, my values become clearer to me. I can be in integrity all the time, which was much harder when you’re a younger woman and you’re trying to please and juggling all this stuff.”