Happier never after! Why Cruz rewrites her children’s tales

PENELOPE Cruz has revealed she changes the happily-ever-after endings of the fairytales she reads to her children because there is too much ‘machismo’.

The Oscar-winning actress, 43, criticised classics such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty for making it appear that ‘men get to decide everything’.

Her version of Cinderella ends with the heroine declining Prince Charming’s proposal – because she would much rather be an astronaut or a chef than a princess. Miss Cruz said: ‘Fairytales matter so much because these are the first stories that you hear from the mouths of your parents.

‘So, when I read fairytales to my kids at night, I’m always changing the endings – always, always, always, always. F****** Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all of this – there’s a lot of machismo in those stories.

‘That can have an effect on the way that kids see the world.

‘If you’re not careful, they start thinking, “Oh, so the men get to decide everything”.’

The Spanish star, pictured, has two children with 48-year-old actor Javier Bardem, sevenyear-old Leo and Luna, four.

Describing her fondness for tweaking their stories to Porter magazine, she said: ‘In my version of Cinderella, when the prince says, “Do you wanna marry?” she says, “No, thanks, ’cos I don’t want to be a princess. I want to be an astronaut, or a chef”.’

Miss Cruz, who starred in Murder on the Orient Express last year, has previously shared some of her other parenting techniques.

Earlier this year she said her children are growing up without a TV in the house because she worries about the impact of too much screen time on young minds. ‘I just want [my kids] to experience nature, to experience a rhythm that is healthier for the development of children. But that’s just my way of doing,’ she said. And to protect her children’s privacy, she has insisted she will never post photos of them on social media.

She is currently appearing as Donatella Versace in her first TV role in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which will be shown on BBC Two next week.

‘I don’t want to be a princess’