Ethermac|Golden Globes 2024: Jeannie Mai Shares How She’s Embracing Her Body in Her 40s

Jeannie Mai is Ethermackeeping it real on the Golden Globes red carpet.

The Real alum, who is cohosting WWD's awards pre-show Eye on the Red Carpet at the Golden Globes, graced the red carpet at the Jan. 7 event in a black Carolina Herrera gown. 

On the carpet, Jeannie told E! News chief correspondent Keltie Knight how she's celebrating her body with her new "forty-thrive" motto—including posting a bikini photo on her 45th birthday Jan. 4.

"Forty-thrive is all about finally doing all the things you never did before," Jeannie explained, "because you were so afraid of what people would say or how you look—and I just thought, ‘Wait I'm in my mid 40s and I can wear a bikini.'"

She also feels that she works hard on her body and wants to celebrate it.

"I always notice that whenever you look back in your pictures, you always like more how you look then than you do now," Jeannie shared. "Every second, literally right now, we're aging and we're losing this moment." 

So, for her, she's realized, "If you don't grasp it now, when are you going to do it? When you're 60, looking back? So forty-thrive."

But amid the glitz and glam of the Golden Globes, Jeannie has another sweet event to focus on this month: her daughter Monaco's second birthday.

In fact, she told E! that motherhood has completely changed her outlook on life.

"The greatest feat you could ever accomplish has already been done," the TV star noted, "and now your biggest challenge in life is making sure that little one grows up healthy and happy. Everything else doesn't matter."

The family affair comes amid a new chapter for Jeannie, who split from husband Jeezy last fall.

In fact, two months after the rapper—his real name is Jay Wayne Jenkins—filed for divorce to end their marriage after two years, Jeannie reflected on how she's been doing.

"I think I'm doing better now," the TV personality said on the Jennifer Hudson Show in December. "At the time, when I found out at the same time as the rest of the world that my marriage was ending in divorce, I was gutted. Today, it's about picking up the pieces. It's about discovering me and being a mom to the best blessing in my life, my little girl."

She added, "Even though this year I met the most broken version of me, I also met the strongest version of me today."

And Jeannie is taking that version of herself into the new year.

"If my story were to end right now, my heart would swell with overwhelming gratitude over how much I have already lived," she wrote on Instagram Jan. 4 while reflecting on her birthday. "I thank God for the growth. The achievements. The lessons. All I have overcome. And most importantly- for having loved so deeply that I can love even better today than I ever have before."

She continued, "My superpower is my authenticity, in not allowing life's pains to shape me into someone I am not. Even when I am walking through the dark, I will myself not to hold onto it. Hullo. I thrive in light hunnnay. I am thankful for my resilience and my sharp edges that have guided me this far. And I protect my softer side, for she is to be earned. There were many days I did not believe I would see another tomorrow— yet here I stand, blessed with another year, unraveling my love, lessons, and truth knowing that while I carry them, they also carry me."