Cruz controls endings on her kids’ fairy tales

PENELOPE Cruz has revealed she changes the happily-ever-after endings of the fairy tales 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”.

Cruz said: “Fairy tales matter so much because these are the first stories that you hear from the mouths of your parents.

“So, when I read fairy tales to my kids at night, I’m always changing the endings – always, always, always, always. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all of these – there’s a lot of machismo in those stories.

“That can have an effect on the way that kids see the world.” The Spanish star, who starred Murder on the Orient Express

in last year, has two children with 48-year-old actor Javier Bardem – Leo, 6, and Luna, 4.

She has previously shared some of her other parenting techniques, such as letting her children grow up without a TV because she worries about the impact of too much screentime on young minds. She is currently appearing as Donatella Versace in her first TV role in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. – Daily Mail

Penelope Cruz