“I don’t even want to talk about it,” the actress quipped ahead of her 80th birthday in May
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NEED TO KNOW
- Candice Bergen said she’s “in total denial” about turning 80 in May
- “Being 80 is just unfathomable to me,” she told AARP’s Movies for Grownups
- The actress also shared how much she cherishes spending time with her daughter, Chloe Malle, and her two grandchildren
Candice Bergen is in denial about her upcoming milestone birthday.
Ahead of turning 80 in May, the actress admitted during an interview with AARP’s Movies for Grownups, published Tuesday, March 10, that she finds it “unfathomable.”
“Oh God. Oy. I’m in denial,” Bergen said. “I’m just in total denial. I don’t even want to talk about it. Being 80 is just unfathomable to me.”
“It doesn’t feel anything. You feel the same,” she continued. “You feel like you always felt. Except maybe you walk a little bit slower and more carefully, because you don’t want to fall. So stepping off a curb is a big event for me.”
Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty
The Murphy Brown star went on to explain that, aside from “a few health issues,” she stays young by working out with a trainer five days a week. In fact, she still goes to the same trainer that worked with her husband, Marshall Rose, before his February 2025 death from Parkinson’s disease.
“I’ve known him for years, and he worked with my husband when he was ill, and he’s just very savvy and knows his stuff,” she said of her trusted trainer. “It’s very little cardio; I barely break a sweat. I said today, ‘You’re just trying to keep me alive, right?’ It’s just to remember how to move stuff, keep your joints … to get the blood pumping a little bit.”
Bergen also expressed her desire to embrace the best parts of getting older: spending time with her daughter Chloe Malle and grandkids: Louis, 5, and Alice, 3.
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“They are the lights of my life. I love sitting on my couch watching movies with them,” she said. “They call me Toto. They just came up with it, and now everyone in my family calls me Toto.”
Along with cherishing the time she spends with her family, Bergen came to realize that “the grace of getting older is something to be grateful for” in itself.
“It’s not always the purest gift, but it’s important to be grateful for it,” she said. “Also, turning 80 is not what it used to be. My father [ventriloquist Edgar Bergen] died at 75, and at the time, I remember thinking, 'Well, that’s a full life.'”
“I’m 79, and it is not a full life,” she continued. “I count on being there for my grandson’s graduation from high school. Hopefully, my granddaughter. Well, that would make me almost historic.”
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