Tracee Ellis Ross gives advice on aging, happiness, and using your voice for November 2021 issue of Harper's Bazaar

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross graced Harper’s Bazaar’s November 2021 issue with big billowing dresses and even bigger and much-needed advice. She covers her time on television, finding happiness on her own, and accepting aging and everything that comes with it.

On finding happiness for herself:

“I didn’t see enough examples of different versions of how a woman can find happiness and joy and power and sensuality, sexuality, all of that, without it being through the lens of how I’m seen by a man. People are like, ‘You’re the poster child for being single.’ And I was like, ‘Great.’ But what I would prefer is that I’m the poster child for living my life on my terms. And that there’s a version of that for everyone. I don’t live my life for other people. I just totally live it for me. This is something that has really solidified itself into an unbreakable, unshakable foundation in the last four or five years.”

On using her voice:

“There were a lot of instances on Girlfriends when I used my voice powerfully and it wasn’t well received. People don’t want to be told that what they’re doing might not be the right thing or might not make everybody happy. But I am somebody who—I don’t just go along to get along.”

On embracing aging:

“I’m the sexiest I’ve ever been. And when I say that, I mean I feel the most myself. And the information is just not out there. And it’s as if you get to this age and—what was that Tina Fey sketch?” she asks, referring to the one Fey starred in on Inside Amy Schumer called “Last F***able Day.” “It’s like, they’re going to cart me off in a canoe into no-man’s-land. Fuck that. Shut up. I’m going to be sexy all over the place. Living my life with my juice.”