Its Almost Okay To Be Older, But Just For This Week

Thanks to Tracy Chapman and Julia Roberts. You were no help Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman...

As the kids would say (and thanks Ali Campbell for the reminder), I am OB.SESSED with Tracy Chapman. Not just Tracy Chapman from all those years ago – 36 years, by the way, if anyone is counting. But don’t count – guaranteed to feel ancient in the huff of a held breath.

Tracy Chapman released Fast Cars 36 years ago in 1988. Equally horrified that 1988 was 36 years ago. Surely that was what? Ten years? Not 36. I digress. Tracy Chapman stepped out onto the Grammys stage this past week to perform Fast Cars with Luke Chapman. I knew little of Luke, but even I would have been petrified of mashing up Tracy and her iconic song with a dude. It was beautiful and reverent. Tracy was majestic… And I don’t just mean the performance. Watch here. When I say I am obsessed – please read with the dramatic pause in the middle of the word – I mean I am obsessed with her lewk.

How insanely good are those grey locks? How’s that black Prada shirt with the inky embellishment on the pushed-up cuffs? How is her skin? She’s 59 by the way. My god, you can pen a thousand think pieces about Pamela Anderson stepping out – shriek – make-up free on the red carpet but look at this woman! She is forking glorious. I’d follow her into battle – but perhaps I am just leaning too far in quiet warrior goddess vibes because I have been reading way too many fantasy novels back-to-back.

Aside on fantasy: There has been soooo much press about ACOTAR – that’s A Court Of Thorns And Roses for the uninitiated - but I wasn’t mad-mad about the first book. A few weeks ago, I picked up Crescent City, a series by the same author, Sarah J Maas, and – stop the lights! She’s spawned an entire genre – romantasy – but, fan yourselves, they are great reads if you’re into such things… The books are House Of Earth & Blood, House Of Sky & Breath and the last (supposedly, but here’s hoping there’s more) book has just been released to major global screams of excitement and dead faints…. House Of Flame & Shadow.

Okay, back on track! So Tracy Chapman’s hair deserves its own fan account like Connell Waldron’s chain or Lenny Kravitz’s abs. It’s increasingly difficult to turn on any screen and see a real reflection of Getting Older, which is possibly why I keep returning to her images. In the same week as I was falling about over Tracy Chapman’s grey, I started watching Ex Pats. This is Nicole Kidman’s new series – and entirely worth watching, set in Hong Kong, about three ex-pats whose lives collide.

True to form, Nic is entirely flawless. Flawless. Not a feathered line, not a wandering lipliner, not a snaggle-toothed grey, not a signal of movement, not a neck crease, not a freckle. Not even a meandering nipple at the premier. It wouldn’t dare!! Nicole Kidman is 56 years old. She’s undeniably and ethereally beautiful. None of us would look like her on a good day anyway. But, fork, try spending all night checking out these dames by the light of your streaming screen and you can only feel like one of the Witches of Eastwick Macbeth by the end of a first episode.

Plus, they’re all so bloody disingenuous. It’s all “good skin routines,” “lots of water,” “stay out of the sun” and “clever use of lipliner”… No doll. We all have good skincare, SPF and MAC Spice and even with this holy trinity we are nowhere near the same level of skintight 28-year-old face as y’all.

Demi Moore is fully out and about at the mo’, thanks to the press rendezvous for her new series Feud. It’s centres on Truman Capote and his feud with the circle he affectionately referred to as The Swans – his moniker for New York’s most influential and glamorous socialites of the 60s and 70s.

Back in the day, Truman Capote was part of their circle… and then he started writing about them in thinly-veiled essays… Shame, us journos have always been povvo and in need of the cash as much as the shot of glam. His not-an-expose exposé was published by Esquire. He got paid a fortune for the piece – even by my 2024 standards! – and it caused major (ready: juicy) ructions. The piece was titled after the restaurant they all frequented at the time – so not entirely subtle! And also: entirely scandalous. Both what Truman did and their wild lives. Makes this current crop of real housewives look positively lily-livered.

Demi Moore stars as Ann Woodward. She is joined by (deep breath) Naomi Watts, Calista Flockhart, Molly Ringwald, Diane Lane, Chloe Sevigny – and Tom Hollander is Truman Capote. Delicious.  Demi looks unbelievable…. In fact, she looks so unbelievable that she looks just like herself. Only herself from 20 years ago, so your brain short-circuits and forgets that she is, in fact, 60.

And there’s no way on Earth that her sheet of silken, black hair and smooth, poreless, unlined, seemingly unplumped visage is entirely au naturel, but you still look at yourself and start pulling up bits of the jowels that are slinking ever-further from your jawline. Alas. I know that none of your partners are doing this when they see pics of Brad Pitt. Also 60. Also, infuriatingly back to being utterly perfect. (Although there is a case for claiming that he has never not been perfect. Just the way he is.)

Can we talk about Feud: Truman Capote and The Swans? ‘The writer, who became a veritable celebrity himself with the outstanding success and critical acclaim of works like Breakfast at Tiffany's grew close to many of leading socialites of the time and became privy to their secrets, scandals and vulnerabilities of the social scene's most high profile women. The role of confidant and witty bon vivant to New York's most glittering society jewels was a position Capote held dear. In the show, Capote betrays his devotion to the swans in service of his craft. Struggling with writer's block and various demons, Capote mined his social life for inspiration… In real life, the article did send shockwaves through New York society, with many of its key figures (who also happened to be Capote's closest friends) recognizing themselves and their darkest secret splashed across the page, leading to a swift backlash—and his exile from the elite circles of high society.’ - Time Magazine

I can think of little better than getting to age disgracefully with pots of moola, all my mates and no camera phones or Insta filters, like this lot did back in the day. Besties cashing in your secrets aside, it must surely have been a lot more peaceful on the soul. In fairness, I did enjoy my 90s adolescence in this state of unchronicled limbo.

Side note: Yes and oui oui, I have posted this month’s British Vogue shoot because if anyone deserves to be celebrated for looking sensational at 50, its this woman in this shoot. Julia Roberts.

There’s a powerful Julia clip doing the rounds today because Viola Davis posted abut it - literally hours ago… Don’t say I don’t get you hot-off-the-press info… She is talking about the commentary and ‘backlash’ (loathsomely overused social media word) to a candid snap that she shared of herself and her niece, Emma Roberts playing cards. The comments were chockers with how terrible she looked - ‘she looks so old’ and ‘didn’t recognised her’ to ‘you should be nice, don’t say that’ rebuttals…

She says this: “I am a 50-year-old woman and I know who I am and still my feelings got hurt. I was so hurt that people couldn’t see the point of it [the moment captured] the sweetness of it, the absolute shining joy of that photo.  And I thought: god, what if I was 15? That is just devastating. It really made me see all the things about hearts and clicks and likes…. It taught me a lot about being a young person in today’s society.” You can watch it here.

Ain’t that the truth. I don’t have the answer. And I know it’s not Botox. Nor is it a filter. Or a thick skin. And it’s trite to say the answer is kindness to one another too. But we do make it bloody difficult for ourselves in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ kinda way… And not to quote the Barbie movie, but quote the Barbie movie. We’re too old or … too smooth, too over-filled, too tight, too mutton-as-lamb… And like Tracy Chapman, for me Julia Roberts is always just right - not too old or too anything.

She always appears pretty effortless even when we know at our age that it never reallllly is. She always seems comfortable in her skin and as ready with a smile as she is to duck straight back out of the spotlight. She’s not legging it around in sky high heels with hair trailing down to her waist in cascading waves of splendour, but her hair is great and her shoes are, erm, walkable. It’s likely I have wanted to be Julia Roberts since she stepped out in the brown polka dot sundress mid-way through Pretty Woman, but I absolutely know I want to be her now. It just seems simpler. And I can’t sing like Tracy Chapman.

Who’s with me?