Andie MacDowell may play an older woman on the prowl in “Magic Mike XXL,” but don’t call her a cougar.
The actress and mother of three said that she finds the term offensive. “There’s this notion that as men get older they become more handsome, so therefore they can have younger women, but there is no reality to that obviously,” MacDowell told People. “It’s just another way to disempower women.”
MacDowell went on to say that there is no comparable term for men. “[Women] have been disempowered for so long and I think that it’s finally our time,” she continued.
“And if we want to date a guy that’s 20 years younger than we are then we definitely have that same right, just like any man does. I dare any 57-year-old man to tell me that he looks younger than me,” she said.
MacDowell finished by saying that it should be about romantic connection and not age. “The thing of it is that people are people and age is just a number,” she said. “It all depends on how you connect with someone, how you relate to someone, so why demean either one of us? Why should we do that to disempower either one of us?”
“Magic Mike XXL” opens in theaters July 1.