Actress Kate Winslet has shared rare details about her personal life with her husband Edward Abel Smith, telling podcast listeners the steps she took to improve her libido.
Kate, 48, revealed how she boosted her sex life after discovering she had low levels of testosterone, as many women experience in midlife.
Speaking on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast in September, mum-of-three Kate, best known for starring in the blockbuster Titanic, answered a listener’s question about reigniting her sex drive in a relationship.
Kate answered: "Sometimes women have a real dip in libido because there might be stuff going on with their thyroid. There could also be stuff going on with your level of testosterone.
"A lot of people don't know this, but women have testosterone in their body, when it runs out — like eggs — it's gone. And once it's gone you have to replace it, and that is something that can be done and you'll feel sexy again ... I know."
© Getty ImagesReferring to thyroid levels, the Holiday star commented: "Those things could have a direct impact on how you're actually feeling. It's not your fault, our bodies are weird and they behave in strange ways, especially as we get older.
"So there could be a dip in those hormonal levels for you that is contributing much more than you think to how you're feeling about having sex with your boyfriend, so I would definitely go ahead and do that."
© GettyThe star, whose children are Mia, 23, Joe, 20, and Bear Blaze, 10, also spoke about feeling confident in her own skin – something HELLO!’s Second Act champions.
"We have to own [our bodies], this is the thing,” she said. “We're so conditioned, women, in our 40s to think, 'Oh well I'm creeping closer to the end.' You think you're going into menopause, and you'll stop having sex, your boobs are going to sag and your skin's going to go crepey,” she explained. “First of all, so what? And secondly, it's just conditioning.”
© GettyKate and Edward tied the knot in 2012 at an incredibly secret ceremony in New York. Prior to her marriage with Edward, Kate was married twice, firstly to assistant director Jim Threapleton, and then to Skyfall and 1917 director Sam Mendes.
Speaking to WSJ. Magazine in 2015 about her past, Kate said: "I know lots of people who are not in the public eye who have gone through several marriages I really do," Kate said. "And it's just those are the cards life dealt me. I didn't plan on it being that way…
"No one really knows what has happened in my life. No one really knows why my first marriage didn't last; no one knows why my second didn't", she stated, before saying: "I'm proud of those silences."
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