Hilarie Burton Morgan is embracing her gray hair with pride. The actress, 42, reposted an Instagram Reel shared by hair color analyst Francesca Cairns, showcasing a series of celebrities wearing their silver in various styles. The One Tree Hill alum reposted the reel to her Instagram Story with a text overlay that read, “The BEST company here and proud to be the youngest woman in the Grey Club.”
Other celebrities featured in the reel include Sarah Jessica Parker, Andie MacDowell, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Meryl Streep, among others. The post garnered a lot of attention, with followers celebrating the natural beauty of gray hair in the comments section. “How marvelous seeing so many beautiful women just rocking the grey despite pressure to ‘look young,'” one person wrote, with many others chiming in with similar praise.
Cairns responded to the enthusiasm with a note in the comments section of the reel: “Disclaimer: I get a lot of messages saying they would like to see more grey hair reels and rightly so! Beauty doesn’t have an age. This video is to showcase that you can wear your hair how the HELL you like.”
The Instagram Reel
On her gray hair journey…
Morgan herself has been a vocal advocate for embracing gray hair. In an October 2023 essay for NewBeauty, she reflected on her journey with silver strands. “I’d seen my husband [actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan] slip into Silver-Fox territory with nothing but glowing adoration from fans and media alike,” she told us. “His silver made him better in their eyes. His age was an asset that made him respectable. I wanted that.”
So, I let it go,” she continued. “All of it. The idea of trying to hold onto a youthful version of myself didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t respected in my youth. It wasn’t some golden era of my life. It was trial and error…and more error. It was experimentation. As my silver grew in, I liked how I looked—perhaps for the first time. I liked what it did to my eyes and skin tone. I liked other women reaching out, pleased to have someone to virtually hold hands with as they shed their own dye. I liked that I was free.
And so, I don’t begrudge anyone hanging on to their version of beauty, even if it’s fabricated youth,” she concluded. “But my version of beauty is the power of this next phase, what comes after youth.”
