At this stage of her life, Demi Moore has perfected what wellness means to her.

For years, The Substance star, 62, who graces the cover of PEOPLE’s World’s Most Beautiful issue, “tortured” her body through intense diet and exercise for a string of blockbuster hits in the 90s, including Ghost, Indecent Proposal, Striptease and G.I. Jane. “I was so harsh and had a much more antagonistic relationship with my body. And straight up, I was really just punishing myself,” she tells the magazine in this week’s issue. “And in this desire to dominate it versus now, I have a much more kind of intuitive, relaxed, trusting relationship with my body.”

After wrapping 1997’s G.I. Jane, Moore, who shares three daughters, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, with ex-husband Bruce Willis, recalls “just asking to be my natural size because I didn’t know what it was anymore,” she says. “I had three pregnancies. I had done all of this diet and exercise and controlled and changed it. And I didn’t know. So I just let go.”

Her “moment of surrender” came when she “stopped trying to control my food and I really understood what it meant to be in acceptance of my body as it is, even though it’s not the body I wanted,” she adds. “I really let go.”

For more of Moore’s exclusive interview and photos, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

These days, Moore, who says she’s about 40 lbs. lighter than when she played Lieutenant Jordan O’Neill in the military film, trusts her body “when it tells me it needs something to eat, that it’s thirsty. I listen to my body and I have a lot less fear. When I was younger, I felt like my body was betraying me. And so I then just tried to control it. And now I don’t operate from that place. It’s a much more aligned relationship.”

She begins each day “anchoring with a short meditation, journaling. And overall I like really nutrient-dense food. I don’t eat meat. I do eat eggs. But I think a big part of wellness is really inside out,” she adds. “And I’ve come to realize how important sleep is. I mean, I’m not perfect. I still do drink Red Bull. I do love it. But not many. One.”

When it comes to embracing aging in Hollywood, Moore says the biggest thing “is really being in acceptance of who we are, as we are, at whatever moment that is,” she says. “I have a greater appreciation for all that my body has been through that brought me to now. Like how incredible that my body grew three human beings and I have overall really incredible health.”

That doesn’t mean “sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t go, ‘Oh God, I look old,’ or ‘Oh, my face is falling,’ I do,” she adds. “But at the same time I can accept that that is where I’m at today and know the difference is that doesn’t define my value or who I am.”

It’s been over three years since Chris Cuomo was axed from CNN — but bruised feelings remain at the network over his ouster, and the departure of his onetime boss, Jeff Zucker.

Cuomo reignited the CNN feud during a recent episode of Patrick Bet-David’s podcast by slamming his former cable news bestie, Don Lemon, for not having his back when he was fired.

Sources, however, tell Page Six it was Cuomo who broke the “bro code” when he allegedly backstabbed his old boss, Jeff Zucker, and girlfriend Allison Gollust, who were engulfed in a scandal at the time.

“Jeff put him in primetime. Jeff protected him and Chris sold him out,” a source told Page Six. “He stabbed [Zucker] in the front [by] trying to take the network down,” they added.

Multiple sources said they believe Cuomo was the whistleblower behind Zucker and Gollust’s relationship being exposed, despite it being “the worst kept secret in media,” as one person said.

Cuomo described the accusation as “absurd” in a statement to Page Six. (He’s currently in a $125 million legal battle with CNN).

Meanwhile, the affair led Zucker to resign as head of CNN, while Gollust — who once worked for Cuomo’s brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — eventually stepped down as CMO.

We’re told some CNN staffers are still sore at Cuomo, who they believe, “tried to take down network,” by filing suit when he got the boot.

“It felt vindictive. Jeff and Allison were beloved. Chris was not. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one person say a good thing about him,” one media insider told Page Six.

Another source familiar with the situation told us, “No one at CNN speaks to [Cuomo],” after he tried to “sully anyone’s credibility and reputation.”

A source told us the situation also ended his friendship with Lemon, who told Mediaite last year he still loves the NewsNation host.

Cuomo blasted the accusations as “absurd” and told us, “I have many friends from CNN. It was a great place.”

“The rest of this is absurd and will come out in litigation. If Jeff Zucker or Don Lemon want to have an honest conversation with me, they know how to find me,” he said.

Zucker and Lemon did not comment.

An insider familiar with the situation then dismissed Cuomo’s comments as “absurd,” and a “naked play for attention.” 

Cuomo and Lemon previously hosted “The Handoff” podcast as a spinoff of their once-popular nightly handovers on CNN, between their past shows, “Cuomo Prime Time” and “Don Lemon Tonight.”

Despite previously proclaiming how real their bromance was, Cuomo said in the podcast interview that the banter was just Zucker’s idea, due to his concern about how Lemon would open his show.

In 2022, Zucker wrote colleagues in a memo: “As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years… I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong. As a result, I am resigning today.”

• Nesh Pillay, who struggles with short-term memory loss as documented in the Prime series, 50,000 First Dates: A True Story, shared her struggle with Drew Barrymore, who played a woman with the same disorder in the film 50 First Dates
• Pillay said it started with “a series of head bumps” until one day, she couldn’t remember that she had a daughter Sinead
• While “I cannot retain my memories, I can make memories,” Pillay said, adding that she’s “grateful” that she exists

Drew Barrymore — who famously played Lucy Whitmore, a woman with short-term memory in the 2004 comedy 50 First Dates — interviewed a woman with the real disorder who shared her life in the Prime documentary, 50,000 First Dates: A True Story.

“I always thought that it was an improbable sort of storyline. It turns out that maybe it isn’t,” Barrymore, whose character woke up every morning unable to recall the previous day, said when welcoming Nesh Pillay to the April 23 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. 

Pillay, 35, told Barrymore, 50, that, from a young age, “I’ve had a series of head bumps.”

“My memory was just worse. Then, three years ago, I woke up from a nap, felt a little bit funny. By the end of that day, I started asking JJ [Jakope], my fiancé, questions like, ‘Where are we going?’ ‘What are we doing today?’ Just being confused. By the end of that day, we went to pick up my daughter, and I remember thinking, ‘No. I don’t know how to take care of a child. I don’t have a daughter.’ “

As she explains in the documentary, Pillay thought her fiancé was her Uber driver. She told Barrymore that, over the next few days “my memory regressed to the point that … [it] reset about once a minute.”

“My family took me to the doctor. At first, they were like, ‘This has to be related to her former brain injuries, but she should be fine in a couple of days.’ I wasn’t, so they took me to a different hospital. The assumption was, ‘Well, we don’t know what’s going on, so she must be faking.’ It was not until filming this docuseries, truly, that I was connected to the neuroscientist Morgan Barense … [that we] finally got some very real answers about what’s going on with my brain.”

As she explained, “The different centers of your brain are connected through neural pathways. Like highways almost. And a lot of mine are damaged. The other thing is brain atrophy. If you look at my brain, it’s a lot smaller. There’s a lot of empty space in there, which means that brain tissue is dead. We’re still kind of figuring out if it’s actively dying. There’s no answers. It’s very confusing. I spend a lot of time questioning reality. Like everything I perceive, I kind of go to my therapist and my parents and my journal to piece together what is real life.”

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She also shared that she and her fiancé separated when her memory was “resetting very often” — and sounded off on the imbalance that often occurs “when women’s stories are told.”

“It’s always really a man’s hero journey,” Pillay said. “It’s like a love story and, ‘Ugh this man stayed with her.’ “ But, she added, her documentary isn’t about romantic love. “It’s familial love. It’s sister love. It’s friend love. It’s self-love. And there are all of these other important types of love for women that we really need to be prioritizing. For me in this, I didn’t want the message to be: ‘And then they lived happily ever after.’ I’d rather create something real that connects with people than something pretty or perfect.”

She shared that while “I cannot retain my memories, I can make memories” — and that’s something she focuses on.

“I exist. I’m very grateful for that. For as long as I get to be alive and be present and everything I get to experience, I am endlessly grateful.”