Garcelle Beauvais is proving everyone wrong.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star celebrated her 55th birthday in November. Yet, Beauvais was once told her career in Hollywood wouldn’t last after she turned 40.
“What’s interesting [is] when I first started in this industry, all I heard is ‘When you’re 40, you’re done,'” she told PEOPLE at the 2022 NBCUniversal Upfront event on Monday. “‘You’re not gonna work again.’ It’s horrible. I mean, and I didn’t buy into it. But in the back of my head, I was like,”What the hell am I gonna do?”
Beauvais brushed off others’ limits for her and continued to find success as an actress. She appeared in the Syfy series The Magicians from 2016 to 2019 and on the Paramount+ anthology show Tell Me a Story in 2019. She also had a role opposite Eddie Murphy in Coming 2 America last year.
Outside of acting, she became a co-host on The Real and joined RHOBH as its first Black star in 2020.
Beauvais gave credit to other women over 40 who are busting the ageist myths of the industry.
“It’s great to see … here we are, all these women of a certain age, and we’re doing it,” she said. “Yeah. You know what I mean? And I feel like we don’t get enough credit for it. You don’t get enough credit for how brave we are for putting our lives out there in a fish bowl.”
She continued, “And you know, we’re doing businesses, we’re raising our children. I think it’s all our moment, honestly, but I am, I never thought I could be living this life that I’m living. So it’s amazing. It’s the American dream that I didn’t even know existed.” (People)