Cameron Diaz Says Walking Away From Acting ‘Was Like a Cleansing’

Being true to herself. Cameron Diaz opened up about her decision to retire from acting in 2018, after losing part of who she was through the work.

“A peace. I got a peace in my soul because I finally was taking care of myself,” Diaz, 47, told Gwyneth Paltrow in the Wednesday, August 5, episode of “In Goop Health: The Sessions” video series. “I feel grounded and light.”

The Charlie’s Angels actress, who hasn’t starred in a movie since 2014, noted that “it’s a strange thing to say” and that a “lot of people won’t understand” why she announced her retirement two years ago.

Cameron Diaz Says She Had ‘Peace in My Soul’ After Walking Away From Acting
Cameron Diaz Courtesy Cameron Diaz/Instagram

“It’s so intense to work at that level and be that public and put yourself out there,” Diaz explained. “There’s a lot of energy coming at you at all times when you’re really visible as an actor. I’m sensitive to some energy and not others. I do get the overwhelming energy of the attention that’s being put toward me.”

At one point, the California native, who married Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden in 2015, said she paused and examined what her world outside of acting included and she wasn’t happy with what she saw.

“I really looked at my life and I saw what I had been — when you’re making a movie, it’s the perfect excuse, they own you — and I realized I handed off parts of my life to all these other people,” she said. “They took it. I basically had to take it back and take responsibility for my life.”

The new mom, who welcomed daughter Raddix in December 2019 via surrogate with husband Madden, 41, doesn’t regret her choice. “It was like a cleansing,” she noted.

The Avaline wine cofounder further explained that because actors are “infantilized” and taken care of constantly she had to break free.

“Overwhelming your life becomes so narrow. Everybody’s doing things for you and you’re catered around,” the Mask star told Paltrow, 47. “I never felt really, truly comfortable with that. I understood it was part of the job, and for me, I needed to become self-sufficient again.”

She added: “I really needed to know that I could take care of myself [and to learn] that I knew how to be an adult.”

After switching her life course, Diaz leaned on her husband and had to really figure out how she wanted to function moving forward.

“I learned a lot about myself. It’s painful. It hurts. It’s scary,” she revealed. “I credit Benj a lot. I broke that mirror about a thousand times when he put it up to me.”

Diaz first described herself as “actually retired” during an Entertainment Weekly interview in March 2018 alongside her The Sweetest Thing costars, Christina Applegate and Selma Blair. The Bad Teacher actress told fans during an Instagram Live chat in May 2020 that she’s “not going to do more films at the moment.”

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source: usmagazine.com