Halle Berry is renewing her criticism of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying he never reached out to her after she publicly called him out in December — contact she says she expected as part of a shared effort to strengthen menopause care in the state.
Speaking at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Dec. 3, Berry addressed women’s health and took aim at Newsom over his decision to veto the Menopause Care Equity Act — AB 432 — for the second straight year. Berry had been a prominent supporter of the bill, which aimed to make it easier for women to access medical treatment for menopause-related symptoms, according to Politico Pro.
“Back in my great state of California, my very own governor, Gavin Newsom, has vetoed our menopause bill, not one, but two years in a row,” Berry, 59, said at the summit.
“But that’s okay, because he’s not going to be governor forever, and with the way he has overlooked women, half the population, by devaluing us in midlife, he probably should not be our next president either,” she continued, drawing an audible reaction from the crowd. “Just saying.”
A day later, Newsom told reporters he had spoken with Berry’s manager and suggested the actress was unaware he was already planning to propose menopause-care funding in the state’s 2026–27 budget.
“We have the ability to reconcile that, so we’re reconciling. I’ve included it in next year’s budget,” Newsom, 58, said on Dec. 4. “We already were in the process of fixing it.”
Two months after the public back-and-forth, Berry told The Cut that she took Newsom’s remarks about “reconciling” as a sign he intended to address the issue with her directly. She said that follow-up never happened.
“It’s disturbing when people say they’re going to do things and then they don’t,” Berry told the outlet for its February cover story. “But he heard what I said. If he is going to run to be our next president, he can’t sleep on women. Wake up, Gavin.” (Reached out to Berry’s spokesperson for clarification on whether Newsom reached out to her manager in December as he previously suggested.)
Not long after The Cut published Berry’s comments, Newsom’s office highlighted a new budget proposal that it says would expand access to menopause care.
“Ms. Berry’s remarks are very unfortunate given the Governor’s proposal put forward to support menopause care through the state budget, just as he said he would do in his veto message on AB 432,” a spokesperson for Newsom said on Wednesday, Feb. 4.
Elsewhere in the profile, Berry explained why menopause has become a major focus of her advocacy, describing it as a defining cause in this chapter of her life.
“Fighting for women’s health feels like a formidable cause for my second act,” she said.
“You get to this age where you feel like you’re being marginalized, devalued. You feel it at work. You feel it from society,” she added. “But I have adamantly decided I am not going to allow myself to be erased. That’s why I’m on my menopause mission. I’m going to be louder than I have ever been.”
