The Moment Halle Berry Called Out Gavin Newsom Over the Menopause Bill
Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry didn’t sugarcoat a thing. She stepped right into the national conversation and dragged California Governor Gavin Newsom for vetoing bipartisan menopause legislation not once but twice. And she made it clear that this move could cost him any presidential dreams he might be entertaining.
At The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, Berry spoke from a place women know all too well. Her voice was steady but strong. Her message was sharp. “Here in my home state of California, my own governor, Gavin Newsom, has vetoed our menopause bill not once, but two years in a row,” Berry stated Wednesday. “But that’s alright; he won’t be governor forever.”That line hit like a clean read. No fluff. No hesitation.
Berry didn’t stop there. She pressed the larger point — women’s health is not optional. It’s not a political accessory. It’s not something you toss around during election cycles and then abandon.She followed up with, “By neglecting women—half the population—and dismissing us during midlife, he really shouldn’t be our next president either.”
That’s a mic drop from a woman who has lived the reality millions face.
And honestly? She’s not wrong.For the second year in a row, bipartisan lawmakers pushed the Menopause Care Equity Act through the California state Legislature. Twice, Newsom vetoed it. The latest rejection came in October, and it set off a wave of disappointment among advocates who saw this bill as a major step toward leveling the healthcare gap women have been screaming about for decades.
The bill would’ve required health care plans that already cover outpatient prescription drugs to also include perimenopause and menopause care. It also demanded new medical training requirements around menopause — because shockingly, most doctors get almost no formal education on it.Kind of wild that half the population goes through something, and the healthcare system still shrugs like it’s an elective class.
Berry’s push didn’t slow down after the veto. She teamed up with Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Dr. Pauline Maki, director of the Center for Health, Awareness, and Research on Menopause at the University of Illinois’s College of Medicine. Together, they penned an op-ed for Time that went straight for Newsom’s policy decisions. In their words, his veto represented a “failure” of his commitment to women.
“It’s infuriating that women in California have to keep waiting for proper healthcare when we were so close to making real progress,” she asserted.
And trust, there are millions of women nodding their heads right now because the frustration is universal.
