Hillary Clinton Gets Real on Menopause and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP': 'I Admire the Audacity'
She might be a champion of gutsy women, but Hillary Clinton doesn't think it should be an act of courage for women to talk openly about the health and function of their lady parts.
As Clinton's Gutsy docuseries with daughter Chelsea premieres Friday on Apple TV+, including episodes with Wanda Sykes talking about menopause belly (Sykes has named hers Esther) and with Megan Thee Stallion talking about her sex-positive "WAP", the former secretary of state recalls her own experience with menopause — and that provocative rap.
"After a certain age, we all seem to inherit these new things on our bodies," Hillary, 74, tells PEOPLE. "It was toward the end of the second term, after I turned 50 in 1997, that I began to go through menopause, and it was something you didn't talk about in those days. My friends and I would talk about it or roll our eyes, but not publicly."
"That's why we really wanted to talk about it with Wanda, because it's a universal experience for us. Thank goodness we're getting into a time women's health — and especially now with all the challenges about reproductive health — are forcing this conversation out of the shadows and into the daylight," Hillary adds of the frank conversation she, Chelsea and Sykes had over a game of bowling — complete with matching Laverne & Shirley-style bowling shirts.
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Courtesy of Apple Hillary and Chelsea Clinton bowl with Wanda Sykes
"It's astonishing to me how ignorant a lot of these men legislators are, in a lot of these states making these laws about women's bodies," she says. "The things they say, the things that they think, the ignorance that they display is breathtaking, so the more we can talk about it—"
Chelsea jumps in: "It's dangerous. ... Stigma is so deadly when it comes to public health."
Hillary acknowledges stigma played a role in her silence in the White House.
"Looking back, I mean, it wasn't yet at that point in our social or psychic development that I would've said, 'Oh, okay, the first lady's going through menopause. Here I go. Watch out, everybody!'" she says, adding that she admired her predecessor Betty Ford for daring to speak openly in 1974 about her breast cancer and mastectomy.
"She had cameras in her recovery room," Hillary marvels. "Finally, we're dealing with menopause and reproductive health and a lot of the other things that women have always had to go through, but sometimes alone, and sometimes without even the awareness in their families or the medical community, certainly the larger society, about what that is like."
Heidi Gutman/Apple Hillary and Chelsea Clinton paint alongside Megan Thee Stallion
In a separate Gutsy episode titled "Gutsy Women Refuse Hate," the Clinton women sit at canvasses on easels beside Megan Thee Stallion's pool and paint while commiserating about how they each handle personal attacks from strangers.
"Painting makes me calm," Megan tells her visitors.
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Hillary confides that she first started following Megan when her controversial rap song "WAP" came out in 2020.
So PEOPLE had to know: What did Hillary really think when she first heard the lyrics to that song?
"I didn't know what to think, because I'm of a much different generation, but I admired the audacity and the kind of agency that both of those young women were exhibiting: 'Here I am. Here's what I want to say, and either like it or not.' I did respond to that," Hillary replies.
Apple TV+ Gutsy premieres Sept. 9 on Apple TV+
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She notes that months after they filmed with Megan, the star earned her degree in health administration from Texas Southern University.
"That's a pretty big deal. I mean, here she is, this superstar, and yet she's still going to school to pursue her other dreams. So I wanted to make that connection."
All eight episodes of Gutsy premiere on Apple TV+ Friday, Sept. 9, featuring unexpected conversations with change-makers — both famous and not — including Kim Kardashian, Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson, Amy Schumer, Gloria Steinem, Dr. Jane Goodall and Drag Race legend Symone.
