Kate del Castillo on Menopause, Vertigo and Latina Representation in Hollywood

Saying your age, and your hot flashes, out loud

Rosie grew up with a poster from Muchachitas, Kate del Castillo’s first telenovela, on her wall. Decades later Kate is still working, still creating and still being offered too many of the same kinds of roles. The episode opens with Kate’s answer to the idea that menopause is not sexy: she is 52, she feels great, and she will tell anyone in the room she is having a hot flash.

From there the conversation ranges widely: her health scares and the frustration of not getting answers, crossing over from Mexican television to the United States, why Latinas remain largely invisible on screen, building her own production company, choosing not to have children, and what wellness means to her now.

What this episode covers

• Why Kate refuses to hide her age or her menopause symptoms
• Hot flashes at 52, and not knowing exactly where you are in the transition
• Severe vertigo, constant tinnitus and the toll of searching for answers
• Why short appointments and normal-looking labs leave so many women without help
• Crossing over from telenovelas to Hollywood, and what “crossover” really means
• Latina representation, stereotypes and why she created Cholawood
• Choosing not to have children, and standing by that choice
• Self-respect, and removing failure, sacrifice and regret from your vocabulary

“It’s super sexy to be 52”

Kate is direct about midlife in an industry that would rather not talk about it. In meetings, she says, women her age are written off, and she refuses to hide it. She tells people her age, says she is having hot flashes and asks for the doors to be opened if she needs to. Rosie sees that as part of a bigger conversation about women taking up space and trusting that their voices matter.

Kate’s own symptoms arrived late. She is having hot flashes at 52, which she considers late; her mother’s did not start until 53. She has not had a period in decades because of the IUD she uses, so she is not sure where she is in the transition. Her hormone tests have come back normal, and the hot flashes, she says, are the part that is truly hard.

When nobody can tell you what is wrong

Kate has acted since she was nine and had never canceled a day of work until a severe bout of vertigo hit while she was filming The Cleaning Lady in Albuquerque. For about a week and a half she could not stand without falling. Since then she has lived with constant tinnitus for more than a year, alongside headaches that led to an MRI. She has seen specialists and paid for treatments insurance did not cover, and she still does not have clear answers.

Both women talk about a system that treats every patient the same. Kate describes appointments limited to about ten minutes. Rosie recalls labs that were called normal until her gynecologist looked at the same numbers and saw perimenopause, which is why she encourages second opinions. They agree on one thing: you know when something is wrong with your body, so keep advocating for yourself.

This is a personal conversation, not medical advice. If you are experiencing vertigo, persistent tinnitus or new headaches, talk with a qualified healthcare professional.

Still working twice as hard

Kate moved to the United States more than two decades ago and became a citizen, starting over when she had everything to lose in Mexico. Back then, she says, American audiences did not want to hear her accent or read subtitles. Streaming has changed that, but Latinas are still largely invisible in her industry, and too many of the roles she is offered are stereotypes she now turns down.

When work dried up after a highly publicized ordeal, she and longtime friends founded their own production company, Cholawood, reclaiming the word “chola” for the resilient women it describes. Her view is that real change requires more women, and more Latinas, in the positions that shape the story, and that a story told by a Latina does not have to be “a Latino story.”

Respect yourself, and keep going

Kate never wanted children, held to that even when partners did, and is grateful she trusted herself. She argues that a healthy kind of selfishness comes first, because you cannot love someone else well without loving yourself. Asked what wellness means now, she talks about a period when she could not recognize herself in the mirror, and about the respect for herself that came back once she found her way out.

She has taken three words out of her vocabulary: failure, because every experience teaches you something; sacrifice, because she has made choices rather than sacrifices; and regret. Health, she says, is everything, the longest relationship you will ever have is the one with yourself, and there is a difference between wanting a partner and needing one.

Timestamps

Times refer to the YouTube video.

Explore the conversation

Questions explored in this episode

Related resources

• Perimenopause: start here
• BALANCE, the perimenopause docuseries Rosie executive produced
• Mayim Bialik on menopause, anxiety and trauma in midlife
• Self-compassion: the practice underneath all of this
• Perimenopause and menopause coaching with Rosie Acosta
• All episodes of The Radically Well Podcast