Demi Moore Is ‘Centered and at Peace’ as She Approaches 62nd Birthday: She’s ‘Never Felt Better’

She looked radiant. As Demi Moore made her way down the red carpet at the L.A. premiere of her new body horror film, The Substance, on September 16, she oozed confidence in a glittering, stained glass-inspired Oscar de la Renta gown. The night was nothing short of a triumph for the actress, whose performance in the movie — which received a 13-minute standing ovation during the Cannes International Film Festival in May — has also sparked Oscar buzz and the best reviews of her career.

Demi is enjoying a renaissance at 61. “This is the most exciting time of my life,” she said on Today on September 9. “My children [Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 30, with ex-husband Bruce Willis, 69] are grown. I have the most independence and autonomy to really redefine where I want to go. I don’t know what that looks like or where it is, but I’m just excited to be living in it.”

After decades of fighting personal demons, “Demi is happier than ever, and it shows,” adds a source. “She’s about to turn 62 [in November] and has never looked or felt better.”

A Timeless Beauty! Demi Moore's Transformation Over the Years

Demi Moore Is Figuring It Out

The star has finally made peace with who she is — inside and out. Demi’s decision to appear in The Substance — in which she plays an aging A-lister who turns to a mysterious new drug to reclaim her youth — forced her to reflect on the decades she placed “a lot of value” on what she looked like.

“People can anonymously judge one another really in cruel ways,” Demi recently told The Guardian. When that happens now, “I have learned to just let it roll,” explained the Striptease and G.I. Jane actress, who developed an eating disorder and excessively exercised as she bowed to Hollywood’s “pressure for perfection” in the ’80s and ’90s, the decade she became showbiz’s highest paid actress before her career petered out. “If I give it a lot of weight and value and power, it will have it. If I don’t, it won’t.”

Making this movie, which hit theaters on September 20, “gave me a greater appreciation for myself as I am,” she recently told Variety.

But it’s taken a long time to get here. In the early ’80s, Demi drank heavily and became addicted to cocaine as her fame rose. St. Elmo’s Fire filmmakers sent her to rehab so she could make the 1985 coming-of-age drama, and she remained sober for almost 20 years. However, she relapsed in her 40s while married to third husband Ashton Kutcher, 46, who allegedly didn’t believe alcoholism was “a thing.”

Celebs Who Have Been Mom-Shamed! Paris Hilton, Rumer Willis, More

The Ghost lead further struggled mentally and physically following their 2011 breakup — which led to an estrangement from her daughters. Her rock bottom moment was still to come, though. In 2012, Demi suffered a seizure and was rushed to the hospital after inhaling nitrous oxide and smoking synthetic marijuana at a party — an experience that almost killed her.

“Part of my life was clearly unraveling,” she explained. The scary ordeal inspired her to get clean and reconnect with her girls. Scout later said she was proud of her mom for “doing the internal work that she didn’t have the time to do for a long time, because she was just in survival mode.”

Today, Demi’s relationship with her daughters “is better than it ever was,” says the source. “She looks back on the period they weren’t speaking and it horrifies her.”

Deal of the Day

These ‘Cloud-Soft’ Sandals Are 53% Off Today View Deal

Demi Moore Is Prioritizing Herself

She knows how lucky she is. “I’m so grateful to be sober, most importantly, because it’s given me emotional sobriety” — a skill that helps her manage her emotions in a healthy way, she explained to The New York Times. “Everyone understands the idea of being sober from drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, those kinds of externalized things, but what it is to be emotionally sober means how I’m choosing to live my life, the quality of how I interact with people, my ability to show up for others.”

Demi — whose exes include former husbands Freddy Moore (the musician died at 72 in 2022 after a battle with Alzheimer’s), Bruce and Ashton, plus actors Jon Cryer, 59, and Emilio Estevez, 62 — hasn’t dated anyone publicly since her 2022 split with Michelin-starred chef Daniel Humm, 48. Though she was spotted having lunch with pop star Joe Jonas, 35, in May, she’s insisted that dating “[has] not really been where my focus is. … It’s not about not being interested in dating. It’s more about realizing that I’m now in a place that’s much more about choice as opposed to feeling that there’s any kind of lack.”

As Demi relishes her latest success, she’s also cherishing family time. That includes visiting Bruce, who last year was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, and Rumer’s 17-month-old daughter, Louetta, with musician ex Derek Richard Thomas.

“I love it,” Demi said of being a grandmother (Lou calls her “YaYa”). “She is the cutest.” The sexagenarian grandma “thinks her best work is ahead of her,” says the source. “She’s centered and at peace. This is what she’s always wanted.”