- - Melani Sanders' We Do Not Care Club unites millions of midlife women (even Halle Berry)

Laura Trujillo, USA TODAYJanuary 12, 2026 at 7:43 AM

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Melani Sanders founded the We Do Not Care Club, uniting more than 6 million women in perimenopause and menopause.

Maybe it’s the way Melani Sanders often wears a pair of reading glasses and has another perched on top of her head. Or the way she sighs and says “we do not care about bras” or “unpainted big toenails.”

She captures midlife’s indignities and difficulties through her deadpan delivery in short videos that have women nodding their heads in agreement, laughing out loud and sharing with friends. She says what so many women are thinking – and she makes it way funnier.

Her observations are part of what she calls the We Do Not Care Club, where Sanders shares things that women in perimenopause and menopause no longer care about – from chin hairs to cooking dinner. In a world where midlife women on social media are served a constant flow of protein powders and weighted vests, magnesium supplements and bamboo sheets, Sanders offers a moment of levity.

Her honesty and humor arrived at just the right moment. Her growing fan base is now more than 6 million strong across Instagram and Facebook, TikTok and YouTube of women who no longer want to please anyone. And her “Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook” is out Jan. 13.

Celebrities now call themselves members of the WDNC Club, and Halle Berry texted Sanders “Hey girl, what are you doing?” on a recent Saturday morning after the two had met on “The Drew Barrymore Show” in 2025.

“This is not you,” Sanders replied. “Send me a photo.”

Berry replied with a selfie.

“Halle Berry is so supportive,” Sanders, 45 says in a video call from her home in West Palm Beach, Fla. “We’ve all got a dry coochie during menopause. Even Halle Berry. Maybe hers is bedazzled, but we’ve all got the same problems. As women, regardless of status or color or whatever, we're all going through it and can be supportive of each other and create community.”

Melani Sanders and her followers want you to know: 'We do not care that we are late'

Sanders didn’t intend to start a movement.

On a Tuesday afternoon in May 2025, she was exhausted. Sanders had just finished shopping at Whole Foods and sat down in her car, picked up her phone and pressed record.

“We are about to start a perimenopause and menopause club and it’s called the We Do Not Care Club,” she says into the phone’s camera.

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“I got on a too-little sports bra, and W D N C,” she says. She points to the wisps of hair around her forehead: “I do not care. I could have put some edge control on. Let’s all talk about what we don’t care about today.”

The video was created from frustration, simply to be funny.

She drove home. Before she had put the groceries away, her video had more than 20,000 likes, and comments grew by the minute.

“We do not care that it’s 11:00 a.m. and we still in pajamas,” commented thedirtwithdani.

“I do not care that I have a cactus growing from each of my legs” wrote signofthegypsy.

“We do not care that we are late. We didn’t want to come, be glad we showed up,” elizabethduensing wrote.

Sanders had a small following from videos she made of her life as a wife and mother of three boys. She had even posted about her recent lack of sleep from perimenopause.

But somehow this was different.

Midlife women, who often are raising teenagers and looking after aging parents while working full-time just as their hormones seem to rebel against them – needed her.

Soon the post had 240,000 likes and more than 22,000 shares.

'We don't care if we look pregnant when we really not pregnant'

At first the attention scared Sanders.

“I thought maybe we would have 20 to 30 women apply and we just have us a little club,” she says.

Her husband told her to embrace it.

“When I didn't see my worth and my value, when I wanted to run and just shut down, he told me to keep going,” she says.

The next day, wearing a sideways baseball hat, reading glasses hanging from an oversized T-shirt and wearing another pair, she made a video from bed welcoming new members to the We Do Not Care Club.

“We don’t care if we look pregnant when we really not pregnant.”

“We don’t care about having cellulite in short shorts. Legs is legs.”

“We don’t care that we look like Adam Sandler and Wesley Snipes. If that’s how I look, that’s how I look.”

That second post? It had 1.2 million likes.

Welcome to the 'menodivorce' Why women aren't sweating marriage in a sea of hot flashes

Melani Sanders: 'It’s not that we don’t care about anything. We care about the right things.'

Sanders has watched that first video over and over, trying to understand what captured so many women.

Menopause influencers flood social media. They share tips on lifting strong. They preach eating 100 + grams of protein a day. They sell collagen powders and Vitamin D. They are doctors and nurse practitioners, dieticians and fitness instructors.

Sanders isn’t an expert.

She wasn’t selling anything.

She didn’t have a solution.

“She says what so many of us are thinking but rarely feel allowed to say out loud,” says Mary Claire Haver, a menopause physician, author, podcast host, and someone who has 3 million social media followers. "She gives women permission to drop the pressure to be perfect and simply be themselves.”

Sanders hopes that her reality helps make other women feel less alone.

“It’s not that we don’t care about anything. We care about the right things. We care about peace and people and joy,” she says.

Melani Sanders' "The We Do Not Care Club Handbook" helps women in perimenopause and menopause.

She spent decades raising her sons who are now a 24-year-old law school student, an 18-year-old college student, and a 16-year-old in high school, and worrying whether she was doing things right.

She feels liberated by midlife, letting go of the insecurities.

Perimenopause, the time preceding menopause, can begin for some women in their late 30s or early 40s. Less discussed than menopause, many women don’t know they are in it. But they can feel tired, grumpy and often achy. They don’t always have the more telltale signs of hot flashes.

Sanders had a partial hysterectomy in 2024 and depression followed.

“I didn’t know why I didn’t feel like myself,” Sanders says. “I wake up every day. It's like, who am I gonna be today? Am I gonna cry? Am I gonna yell? Am I gonna cuss? You know, I just don't know what I'm gonna do or who, you know, what's gonna ache? You know, what am I gonna overthink about today?”

She visited several doctors, one who told her that her “labs looked fine.”

She met with a women’s telehealth doctor, who recognized her symptoms. Sanders started hormone replacement therapy in 2025.

“I just keep sharing my struggle vulnerably, transparently,” she says. “I hope it helps other women get help.”

Melani Sanders' celebrity chapters of WDNC

Sanders’ book tour starts this month. She recently added We Do Not Care sweatshirts and baseball hats to her wedonotcareclub.com site. They sold out. A coloring book is next.

Women dressed up as her for Halloween – piling on the reading glasses, copying Sanders’ trademark highlighter pen tucked in their hair, and her homemade WDNC club sign scribbled on a paper napkin.

Ashley Judd says she started a chapter of WDNC club. More celebrities like Sherri Shepherd and Regina King and influencers sharing the list of things they no longer care about and call her a “fearless leader.”

“Here I am just pooping my pants. Please. Y'all don't say fearless. Like I'm coming out here just strong and mighty because of all of you,” she says.

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Sanders is learning to accept help. She hired a housecleaner for the first time in her life, and she ignores many of the requests to partner or sell products.

“I’ve turned down a lot. Of course I want to pay my bills, but if it’s not for me, it’s not for me,” she says.

Her boys, she says, are proud of her.

“I couldn’t do it if they weren’t so independent now. My attention can be on the movement.”

'What was I saying?' asks Melani Sanders

“This is a disclaimer,” she says halfway into our conversation. “I have severe brain fog. So if I start talking about washing dishes or something like that, just go with it, OK, I'll come back.”

“And what was I saying?” she asks.

Halle Berry.

“Yes, so even Miss Halle Berry is opening up the conversations,” Sanders says.

Sanders and Berry talked about menopause with Valerie Bertinelli and on a fall episode of Drew Barrymore’s talk show.

“Things get dry and that can affect intimacy,” Berry says on the episode. “We just get old but if we can start talking about it, and our husbands start holding space.”

Sanders says women need to accept that “we all are going to go through this.”

And that it’s OK to talk about it with partners and husbands.

“What we need them to understand is look, if I don't want to have sex or if I don't want to, you know, do certain things, I still love you,” she says. “But that's just not my priority. It might be taking my magnesium, not whatever he has going on.”

A summit in sweatpants? Sounds perfect for Melani Sanders

Sanders isn’t certain of what’s next.

“I want to keep talking,” she says. “We can have conversations. There is beauty in this movement. Nobody cares about your color or what bag you're carrying or what car you're driving.”

She has book events in a few cities in January. She’s also partnering with a women’s telehealth company, and products such as a vaginal moisturizer, a sleep spray and eye drops. There are other offers, endorsements and speaking opportunities.

She’s become good at saying no.

“There were panels that had the latest and greatest speakers, but I really want to wear my jogging suit, you know, but it wasn't the dress code. And I'm not interested,” she says.

She’s thinking about hosting an event to talk about midlife and for women to be themselves.

There definitely will be sweatpants.

Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal," and can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Melani Sanders 'We Do Not Care Club' lets women laugh about menopause

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