Halle Berry reveals the ‘defining moment’ she had when doctor misdiagnosed her with herpes

Halle Berry has shared the “defining moment” she had after her doctor misdiagnosed her with herpes.

The 58-year-old actor recalled the incident when experiencing menopausal symptoms, during Tuesday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. She shared that after one morning when it “took 10 minutes to empty her bladder,” she decided to go to the doctor.

“I thought, ‘What is this?’” Berry explained. “And [the doctor’s] doing the exam, looking up there, and he said, ‘Yep, I know what this is.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ He said, ‘It’s a really bad case of herpes.’”

Following the appointment, Berry said that she and her boyfriend, Van Hunt, “spent the next 72 hours kind of doing the blame game.”

“We were trying to figure out who gave it to me, who gave it to him,” she continued. “And then a couple hours after that, my doctor called me and said: ‘You do not have herpes.’”

The Catwoman star questioned her symptoms before her doctor’s response encouraged her to do more research.

“This was a defining moment for me. I’m like, ‘What is this?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, that’s what it looked like,’” she added, referring to her doctor’s misdiagnosing her with herpes. “That sent me on my own reconnaissance, my own researching. And that’s when I came up with dry vagina syndrome that women have when they’re in perimenopause.”

Berry acknowledged that she had all the symptoms of perimenopause, although “nobody had really had serious conversations” about those symptoms when she was 54.

According to John Hopkins Medicine, some symptoms of perimenopause include vaginal dryness, hot flashes, headaches, night sweats, changes in sexual desire, and night sweats.

The Die Another Day star has previously shared how she was misdiagnosed with herpes. While appearing at the A Day of Unreasonable Conversation summit in Los Angeles in March 2024, she shared her desire to shift the often negative narrative surrounding menopause – the life stage after a person’s menstrual cycles end.

She said that menopause and perimenopause cannot “just be the doom and gloom story” and that it is in fact “a glorious time of life.”

Berry then began to explain how she discovered that she was perimenopausal, first quipping that she thought she was going to skip the experience: “I’m very safe, I’m healthy, I managed to get myself off of insulin and manage my diabetes since I’m 20 years old.”

The Gothika star once again acknowledged that she had to do her own research, after being misdiagnosed with herpes, as she and Hunt both tested negative for the disease.

“My doctor had no knowledge and didn’t prepare me. That’s when I knew, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to use my platform, I have to use all of who I am and I have to start making a change and a difference for other women,” Berry, who is the founder of Respin Health — a company that redefines menopause and female longevity — said.