Andie MacDowell is opening up about her decision to forego attending the Cannes Film Festival in 1989 because she was newly postpartum.
On Saturday, May 25, while attending the iconic festival, MacDowell told People during an interview that she "didn't come to Cannes (to promote her 1989 film) Sex, Lies and Videotape because she just "had a baby."
"I was afraid," she explained.
The actress went on to say that at the time it was socially acceptable to be "cruel to women," and assumedly thought she would face a barrage of criticism and insults as a postpartum mom if she showed up and walked the red carpet.
"I was, nursing, was really big and just motherly and whatever, and I didn't come," she explained. "And that's a shame. It's a real shame."
While being a new mom with a changing body stopped MacDowell from attending the festival then, she says she would make a different choice now, especially as societal expectations regarding new moms have slowly but surely started to shift in a positive, inclusive and more realistic direction.
"Because of the shift in our expectations and because we brought it out, they can't be like that to us anymore," she told the publication at the time, adding that if she as in the same position today she "wouldn't have been afraid to come."
"Now I embrace my womanly body. I think it's very sexy," she continued. "But I think we couldn't feel sexy about ourselves (back then) because they were telling us that we weren't."
The mom of three went on to say that while women may have tolerated unhealthy social norms in years past, they're no longer accepting that type of criticism or harmful standard of perceived beauty.
"We've claimed it, and we've taken it back and we've said, 'But this is what it is to be a woman. We're not girls, we're women,'" she added.
MacDowell is the proud mom of three children—Justin, Rainey and Margaret Qualley—whom she shares with ex-husband Paul Qualley.
"My kids were always my priority and being a mother was the most important aspect of my life," the actress told Interview Magazine in a 2021 interview. "But I was competitive and I did want to work, so I was always balancing both of those aspects of my life."
