Demi Moore on her massive doll collection: ‘I’ve always got little faces looking at me’

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Demi Moore covers the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar. I’m actually not going to publish the cover, just because Demi is naked on it and while I don’t mind it, it’s a bit much in general. The idea of “Demi, Naked” is not some new thing or even a noteworthy thing at this point – she’s dropped trou for many publications over the years. The point of it for this cover was that Demi is telling the naked truth about her life in her new memoir, Inside Out. Demi’s background is well-known to people who were alive in the 1980s and ‘90s: a difficult, terrible childhood with an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, poverty, early fame, early first marriage, divorce, second marriage to Bruce Willis, motherhood, divorce, marriage to Ashton Kutcher, divorce. And on and on. She also made some iconic movies and produced some good movies too. Unfortunately for everybody, Bazaar sent Lena Dunham to profile Demi and after two paragraphs, I wanted to bang my head against the wall. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Her mother’s attempted overdose when Demi was a child: “The next thing I remember is using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow out of her mouth while my father held it open and told me what to do. Something very deep inside me shifted then, and it never shifted back. My childhood was over.”

Is she a bitch? “I’m sure there are a lot of people who think I’m a bitch. I don’t fear to speak my mind.”

She loves & collects dolls and toys: The collection became an obsession in the wake of her divorce from Bruce Willis. “I love figurative art. And when I look at the little faces of things that I have, whether they’re like little animals or little something or others. I’ve always got little faces looking at me. If you go up and look at my carry-on bag, I have a little bear, and I have a little Dil Pickles, you know, from Rugrats? I usually have a monkey in my purse too. It started with one I call purse monkey.” The doll faces are funny faces, “reminding you not to take your life too seriously and to remember the importance of play.”

Tough times. The prying eyes were there when her second marriage ended. They stalked her third. But she did manage to hide some of her life from prying eyes, including the late miscarriage at about the same time that she was accused of being a grandma-aged bride at 42 (40 freaking 2). She hid her private reaction to public humiliation, saying simply, “As a woman, a mother, and a wife, there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life.”

On motherhood: “My daughters offered me an opportunity to start to change the generational pattern. To be able to break the cycles…” Motherhood, she says, was her only absolute goal and the only destiny she can be sure she’s fulfilled, and that includes “mothering myself.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

As soon as I read the doll thing, I remembered that I had read about it before, years ago, and completely forgotten it. Yes, Demi has collected dolls and toys (mostly dolls) for decades. Someone – maybe Ashton Kutchner? – said it was super-creepy, and that her collection is incredibly vast. She apparently has some really pricey dolls too. I mean, it doesn’t take a PhD to get to the root of it: she had a sh-tty f–king childhood and part of her uses the dolls to recreate that childhood. Somewhere, there’s a little girl inside of her that wanted all of those dolls. As for the miscarriage at 42… that’s awful. I didn’t know she went through that. Poor Demi.

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Photos courtesy of Mariano Vivanco for Harper’s Bazaar, photos sent from promotional Bazaar email.

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23 Responses to “Demi Moore on her massive doll collection: ‘I’ve always got little faces looking at me’”

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  1. Jules says:

    The doll thing is creepy AF. Demi looks great though.

  2. Chaine says:

    I’m glad she’s in a better state of mind now. I don’t think that the miscarriage was completely secret, I remember one of the tabloids covered it at the time.

  3. Clara says:

    As a doll maker, yeah really I do, mine are small, from cloth, and are made as ornaments, I find collecting all the dolls to be a bit creepy. Just saying.

  4. Kim says:

    Demi, Madonna, etc. kind of the modern leaders of women who based a lot of their appeal on their looks, and are now trying to cope /compete with younger versions. Personally I’d much rather follow the lead of Olivia Coleman (profiled below).

    • minx says:

      Yeah, I think Demi was always used to being hot and aging has been tough for her, even though she still looks great. She seems sort of lost.

  5. Lady D says:

    If it can help her cope, and it keeps her grounded for her children, then more power to her. It’s not like she’s hoarding 123 animals in her home.

  6. Megan says:

    I always have little faces staring at me … in my nightmares.

  7. Lisa says:

    Nope to the dolls but everyone has their thing.

  8. Maya S. says:

    I actually think Lena Dunham can be a good writer when she’s writing about someone else and not herself. I enjoyed the profile.

  9. LORENA says:

    I cannot imagine the pain of any kind of miscarriage but especially after the first trimester. Must have been heart wrenching

  10. MT says:

    Are there pics of her doll collection? I’d love to see it.

  11. Bookworm says:

    I recall that back when she and Bruce lived in Idaho with their little girls, it was reported that they had one house just for her dolls. Maybe it was for guests, but the permanent residents were the dolls.

  12. schmootc says:

    I’m from Idaho and remember hearing that when she and Bruce were in residence, they had an entire house just for her doll collection. Which I believe.

    My mother also has a doll collection and when I go home to visit, that’s the room I sleep in and yeah, it’s a little creepy.

  13. Nancypants says:

    I don’t have a vast doll collection or eyes staring at me but I’ve always collected dolls.
    I have two daughters so I have an excuse. 😉
    Demi has three daughters.

    I’ve donated lots and lots of dolls but still have many.

    My dolls are on built-in shelves in walk-in closets. No one goes in those except the girls and me.
    I have a collection of 1950s Madame Alexander ballerinas and several of the Presidents’ Wives collection. I have 6 American Girl dolls and their outfits and books. I have the designer Barbies including Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Bloomingdales, etc. I have several Anne of Green Gables dolls and the books. I have a collection of Half dolls from the 1920s.
    These are little porcelain, highly detailed dolls that were attached to pincushions or hat brushes and most of mine are Flappers.

    Of course, I’ve kept all my daughters’ favorite baby dolls and Barbies but they were more into stuffed animals than dolls. Neither have ever wanted children.

    Anyway, I feel very badly for Demi. She might have money but she hasn’t had a happy life or so it seems and I prefer a doll collector over a pet collector which many people are.

    Demi looks lovely in that blue dress.

    • Myrtle says:

      @Nancypants Your doll collection sounds awesome! I love Madame Alexander dolls especially, having grown up with them, and old/antique dolls. (Didn’t know about the designer Barbies.)

      • Nancypants says:

        Smiles! I have other designer Barbies but I can’t remember which. Mine were made in the ’90s and I can’t even find them on ebay now.
        There are other designer Barbies but mine are cuter.
        I’ll probably donate the ballerinas next. A couple could use minor repairs and I don’t know how to do that but others do. Thanks for your comment!

  14. Angie says:

    My mother in law has a huge doll collection that has taken over her house. I don’t get it but whatever. I have just been clear that i don’t want to inherit them. I do try to be sensitive about it though, they mean so much to her and she wants my sister in law and me to love them too. Kind of sad really.

  15. Chelly says:

    Shallow Comment:
    Her boob is really standing up and…out? on the cover. Money, it’s a beautiful thing…fixes anything!

  16. Myrtle says:

    I’m dismayed over the aging woman “Look! I’m still sexy!” trope. It seems so sad and try-hard. Older women who feel sexiest to me are those who look naturally like themselves. Typically, they also dress differently than they did in their 20’s and 30’s. Maturity is sexy. Being comfortable with your changing body is sexy. Laughing a lot, including at yourself, is sexy. It’s not all about showing skin.

  17. holly hobby says:

    I can understand the doll hoarding. If she grew up poor and that’s what she wanted as a child but the family couldn’t afford it. Now that she has the means, why not? Marie Osmond has a collection and she design(ED?) her own line as well.

    My family didn’t have a lot of money so I only had one baby doll I carried with me until I was a preteen. I don’t collect dolls but my fascination was Hello Kitty/Sanrio. Yeah if you were a child of the 70s and wanted the Sanrio collection (but were too poor to buy it), that’s what you will buy when you’re older. I have a lot of Sanrio stuff.

  18. Patty says:

    We need a post about her book, talk about whoa!