Naomi Watts recalls Billy Crudup’s ‘romantic’ comment on Pubes

Naomi Watts remembers a comment from her husband, Billy Crudup, about her pubic hair as the “most romantic words” she’s ever heard.

Part guide, part memoir, the movie star’s new book, “Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I Knew About Menopause,” is candid about aging.

In an anecdote excerpted by Us Weekly from the book released Tuesday, Watts explains how Crudup helped put her at ease when she explained to him why she was wearing a hormone patch the first night they slept together.

“Mortified” to reveal she was in the middle of menopause at the time of their first date, the “Mullholland Drive” actor recalled how all her embarrassment faded when Crudup replied, “Hey, if that can make you feel better: I’ve got gray hairs on my balls.

Before Crudup’s confession about his hair down there, Watts remembers wringing his hands over how the “Almost Famous” star would react to his condition.

“I had started wearing the patch a few years earlier for hormone treatment,” she wrote in “Dare I Say It.” “I was afraid that if he saw it, he would realize that it meant that I was in menopause: I was no longer a vibrant, fertile being.”

Hoping to hide any signs of change in her body, she “ripped off” her patch and “rubbed the skin raw” in the bathroom.

“Unfortunately, the adhesive in the patch leaves a mark on the skin that is very difficult to get rid of,” she recalls.

When Crudup asked Watts if she was okay, she responded that she had come out of the bathroom full of anxiety.

“I stumbled and fumbled for words, but nothing really came out,” the English actor writes in his book.

Rather than judge his then-girlfriend, Watts said, “a smile came across her face.”

“He seemed very relieved that the problem wasn’t due to a lack of desire,” she remembers Crudup’s reaction. “He told me he thought it was great that I was taking care of myself and he asked me how he could help me.”

That’s when he responded with his own frank joke about getting older.

“Those words remain to this day the most romantic words I have ever heard, on or off screen, and that includes the script of every film I have ever starred in,” adds Watts in “Dare I Say It.”

“And even the very affectionate marriage proposal from that same man, which came seven years later,” she mused of her longtime partner, whom she married in a courthouse wedding from New York in June 2023.

The actor told the Los Angeles Times that she decided to write “Dare I Say It,” full of wit and practical wisdom, despite the taboos that exist around talking about menopause.

“I wish there was a book when I was suffering and struggling and filled with shame and doubt and confusion,” she told the newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.