Mandy Moore says her '20s were the worst' and that she's looking forward to aging

Mandy Moore is embracing the confidence and perspective that come with aging.

The singer and “This Is Us” star, 36, opened up about the joys of getting older in a recent interview with Parade.

“I’m excited about all the collective wisdom and clarity and giving less of a you-know-what as you get older,” she said. “Already, the older I am, the more comfortable I get in my skin. You couldn’t pay me money to go back to the last decade of my life. The 20s were the worst!”

Moore has been open in the past about the struggles she went through in her 20s while she was married to musician Ryan Adams.

She said previously that Adams, her husband from 2009 to 2016, was emotionally abusive and controlling throughout their relationship.

“He would always tell me, ‘You’re not a real musician, because you don’t play an instrument,’” she told The New York Times last year, adding that his “controlling behavior essentially did block my ability to make new connections in the industry during a very pivotal and potentially lucrative time — my entire mid-to-late 20s.”

In her recent Parade interview, Moore said this difficult time in her life left her with “so much fear and self-doubt for so long” and made her think the musical phase of her life might be over.

However, playing a singer on “This Is Us” reignited her passion for singing and reminded her of her own musical talents.

“My character singing on the show put me back in the recording studio, made me sing live in front of the crew,” she said. “And I was like, ‘I remember how to do this! It feels good!’ It started to light a fire in me again.”

Moore, now married to musician Taylor Goldsmith, talked about how being in a “healthy and supportive relationship” with her husband also helped her reclaim her confidence.

Now, the singer says she feels “hopeful” — for her own future, and for the state of the world in general.

“I feel like a lot of people look at 2020 and are ready to skip on over to 2021, and I totally understand that,” she said. “But I think this period of recalibration was long needed and maybe couldn’t have happened unless we found ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic and fight for racial justice and all these other pieces of the puzzle that are starting to coalesce.”