Here are some photos of Madonna out and about in London last night. She had dinner with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian and then they all went to Annabel’s for a party and I guess Madonna gave a private performance. Check out her shoes!!! I know we’re supposed to think that Madonna is bringing back the big-soled shoes that were popular in the 1990s, but those look totally orthopedic to me. Like, she needs a wide, sturdy shoe so she won’t bust her ass again, like she did at the BRIT Awards. Speaking of, Madonna appeared on the Jonathan Ross Show (in an episode to be aired next month) and she talked about her fall at the BRITs.
“I didn’t hurt my butt, I hurt my head,” the Material Girl, 56, said Thursday during a taping of ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show in Britain, for an episode that will air next month. “I know how to fall. I’ve fallen off my horse many times, and I tucked, and I have good core strength … but the thing is, I had a little bit of a whiplash, and I smacked the back of my head. So, there was a man standing over me with a flashlight until about 3 a.m. making sure that I was still compos mentis.”
She said the incident was bruising for another reason, too.
“It was a horrible nightmare, because I like to be amazing,” she said. “Seriously, I rehearse and I rehearse and I rehearse, so that when I do the show it’s effortless and I create magic, and I did the opposite. I actually created a horror show for everyone.”
Some people actually thought it was a stunt, based off the “Living for Love” lyrics, which include lines like, “Took me to heaven and let me fall down … Lifted me up, and watched me stumble.”
“I’m never writing lyrics like that again! The universe was trying to teach me a lesson, I guess,” Madonna joked.
She also described the incident itself in further detail, saying she was thrown off from the very beginning of the number.
“I’m a creature of habit, and I rehearse everything – everything, everything, everything – and I was thrown a wrench at the very beginning of my entrance,” she said. “I was told to tie my cape and start much further back than we had rehearsed.”
She added: “Everybody was worried that my cape was going to slide off because it’s quite heavy, so they tied it really tight around my neck … So here I am marching in like a queen, and I got to the top of the stairs and I pulled my silky string, and it would not come undone. And my two lovely Japanese dancers basically strangled me off the stage. I had a choice: I could either be strangled or fall with the cape, and I fell.”
I believe her. I think that’s what happened – she had rehearsed it differently and the cape was tied too tightly. The question I have is: who choreographed this mess? Madonna’s performances at the Grammys and the BRIT Awards have been very, very careful. Even before the fall, she’s been moving like she’s afraid she’s going to hurt herself. Who has been choreographing these complicated routines for her and why does she agree to it?
Incidentally, Madonna talked about ageism in her Rolling Stone interview this week, saying:
“It’s still the one area where you can totally discriminate against somebody, and talk s**t. Because of their age. Only females, though. Not males. No one would dare to say a degrading remark about being black or dare to say a degrading remark on Instagram about someone being gay. But my age – anybody and everybody would say something degrading to me. And I always think to myself, why is that accepted? What’s the difference between that and racism, or any discrimination? They’re judging me by my age. I don’t understand. I’m trying to get my head around it. Because women, generally, when they reach a certain age, have accepted that they’re not allowed to behave a certain way. But I don’t follow the rules. I never did, and I’m not going to start.”
[From RS via Pink News]
Yeah… I mean, I see where she’s going and I sort of agree. But I also think that it’s ageist to expect a 56 year old woman to compete at the same level with the 20-something pop stars of the moment. Is Madonna perfectly capable of being a badass in her 50s? For sure. But seeing her so desperate to appear younger, like one of the kidz, makes me uncomfortable and sorry for her.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
That header picture…..wow.
I know! She’s looking so old.
I don’t think she looks old. All the plastic surgery has made her face look weird and distorted.
Holy Joan Rivers, she needs to lay off the ‘tox!!
Imagine what she’d look like if she’d not done all the fillers/surgery, etc. She wouldn’t look like she’s 25, but she’d probably look better than this.
Compare that to her recent magazine cover. Ouch.
The photo in the car as well. She really looks in pain!
She looks EXACTLY like that mask from the play in the movie Beaches. I’d insert a link but I’m inept.
Maybe she couldn’t move her eyes to see where she was going.
LOL!!!
Hey the woman is 56 years old and had a major fall but got up and finished her act. I give her credit for that. If that had happened to someone younger like K. West, he would have accused the steps as being racist. But she needs to stop with whatever she is doing to her face and let herself age gracefully.
You have to finish your act when you are lip-synching.
She wasn’t lip-synching. Did you not notice the music stop when she fell?
I can’t believe she is 56. She looks incredible.
Get well soon Madge.
I thought about the ageist thing a lot since yesterday. I think maybe I am being ageist in a way. Not because she’s a woman. I look at Mick Jagger, and think, really? You STILL can’t get no satisfaction? Maybe you should look elsewhere for it since you’ve been doing this for oh, a hundred and fifty years. I guess I’ve tried to accept aging and look at the positive side – personal growth and happiness and all that, and I don’t see the growth in someone who’s still doing the exact same thing they were doing 30 years ago. I wonder how much of it is real and how much has to do with my own feelings about getting older and my discomfort with their doing it differently. I can’t tell.
I guess it’s all in the way people choose to define themselves, isn’t it? I think for people like Madonna or Jagger, deep down, there really is no other option, you know?
I guess so. But is that sad, fine or just none of my business? Lol I don’t know what I think anymore.
I’ve always felt that this was the problem with Rock and Roll. The music is essentially for adolescents, so it frequently revolves around adolescent concerns like “getting some sex right now” or “rebelling cause I’m not going to take it anymore”.
If a singer like Ella Fitzgerald (who was never a great beauty, but who had the voice of an angel) sang the songs of Cole Porter or George Gershwin or Irving Berlin or Johnny Mercer or any of the great songwriters of the pre-Rock era when she was an older woman, it did not matter what she looked like. Her voice was sublime the music was great and the lyrics were for adults.
Older people like to have quick and fast sex too they just don’t always get it just like younger people. I’m sure there are plenty of older people that have things that they want to just say screw it and rebel against that is oppressing them in their lives. So I don’t get why these two themes are seen as juvenile.
Also, until the advent of music videos the physical appearance of most singers/musicians no matter the genre didn’t hold them back as long as they were talented.
I find in rock songs it is the way desire and rebellion is expressed that seems so juvenile. I am a fan of the “Great American songbook” – classics from the 1920s-1950 or so. The lyrics of these songs seem to me to be adult in a way that nothing written since can compare. That’s just me of course. You are entitled to your opinion. I find a 70 year old man howling that “he can’t get no satisfaction” to be rather silly.
But:
They’re writing songs of love, but not for me,
A lucky star’s above, but not for me,
With love to lead the way,
I found more clouds of grey,
Than any Russian play could guarantee.
I was a fool to fall, and get that way,
Hi ho! Alas! And also Lack a day!
Although I can’t dismiss,
The memory of her kiss,
I guess she’s not for me.
It all began so well, but what an end,
This is the time a fella needs a friend,
When every happy plot,
Ends in a marriage knot,
And there’s no knot for me.
But if it’s something they truly love doing than why stop doing it? Are people suppose to give up their calling in life just because they’ve been doing it for a long time?
I’m with you, Jinni
Mick belting out Satisfaction at 70 is simultaneously the young Mick, for fans. The work stands on its own merits, like any artist’s, so the singer’s age doesn’t matter.
Keith always said that he saw no reason for them to retire at a certain age, (Ha! 20 years ago!) their music being a lifelong exploration and bone-deep passion, just like Muddy Waters, performing into old age.
🙂
OMG her shoes….the next fall in 3, 2, 1
Orthopedic moon shoes.
I didn’t find the fall funny at all. It wasn’t like she landed on her butt, I mean she could’ve done some serious damage to her spine, neck, head… that’s no joke.
I really loved that excerpt from Jonathan Ross’ interview…..she sounds like the old, playful, and interesting Madonna! (And I j’adore those outrageous shoes)
By contrast her Rolling Stone interview disappoints me. She deals with ageism like a bored teenager: can’t understand/get her head around it? Oh gimme a break Madge, you had a chance to blow it out of the water there, but avoided it.
Mick and the Stones are always a stumbling block in this debate of course. In today’s Guardian there’s a thin piece comparing Yoko Ono and Madonna, vis à vis ageism…….and the thing they have in common, and which sets them many miles apart from The Stones, is Taking Themselves Too Seriously. The guys are still having fun, still in love with their music, and freely admit they are a bunch of old geezers just doing what they love best. Somehow, there is a difference! (Personally speaking, the minute The Stones quit performing for good, I shall head out into the wasteland, never to return. Like Cleopatra, I’ll find nothing new remarkable, beneath the visiting Moon)
••Goodnames: watch this space. I bet, a few months from now, once you are recovered, you’ll be dancing around the drawing room (0-o!) to Like a Virgin! 🙂
Ha! Maybe I’ll even dig out the cone bra for old times sake.
Attagurrrl!
🙂
I totally agree with her ageism statement but I think the reason she gets so many degrading comments is because she has made up her mind that she never wants to be older than 25. I was scrolling through her Instagram photos and all of her comments sound like they were made by a 12 year old. Why can’t she continue to do every single thing she wants to do but with the grace and wisdom of her actual age?
That’s it! That’s the answer. Thank you.
Amen.
I dont know, at a certain age people usually retire. It comes the time when you just can not perform the way you used to do. Of course you have experience and everything but it comes a day when somebody gives you the boot. It happens every day in most kind of jobs. To men and women. For some kind of jobs it comes earlier: Ballet dancers, football players, models…
Of course if you act like a 20 years old instead of trying something different deeper classier and mature, this doesn’t help.
Bette Davis looks so good for her age.
Ouch. But funny.
+1
I think, in the second photo especially, she looks her age, despite all the work she’s had done. Nothing at all wrong with that. She’s 56, and there’s just no getting away from that.
I hardly ever uwear make up – hate the stuff, and don’t know how to use it properly, even when I need to – so perhaps you ladies with some expertise can help me out here. Why do so many of the women I see on here line their mouth way outside of the lips, especially the top lip? I’m assuming it’s to make the top lip look fuller, but it’s so obviously “outside” that it looks horrible and ridiculous – and I have poor eyesight! Do they think we can’t notice that they’ve coloured in outside the line? Or do they think it really does look attractive? Usually, I don’t give a fig about their clothing, styIng, make up etc., but this annoys me no end. It doesn’t look attractive at all.
And I love her shoes! I would get a pair, but as I’m her age, and rather dumpy, I know I’d look ridiculous in them. Sigh…
Why should she expect people to accept her behavior at any age when she won’t accept any age beyond 22? Though it’s her life so she can go ahead and pretend she hasn’t aged 34 years in the past 34 years but she shouldn’t try to shame people who see her for how she is now. We all can’t be delusional.
+ 1000…I think you and I are on the same wavelength…see my post below.
Madonna’s comments on ageism are spot on. And I will tell you, age sneaks up fast on us. One day the typical ever ready bunny you’ve been all your life, next day you stumble on a step and need to adjust your life with an injury. For this total perfectionist, showman to experience this blunder must be eye opening.
Sorry if we “talk sh*t” about your age Madonna but you’re the one who is going through endless “cosmetic procedures” (I hate that expression, it’s like trying to gild a turd) in a frantic effort to hang onto your youth. We’re not saying harsh things about your actual age, it’s about you trying your damndest to deny it through endless surgeries, injections and resurfacing. Not to mention your dire fashion choices. It makes you look desperate and ridiculous so basically we’re not the ones to blame, you are.
@Jaded
I agree.
Yesterday, I watched her videos from back in the 1980s. She was unique and special. It’s too bad that in these past few decades in her effort to be different, she’s shown a lack of being special but rather has become trite.
That last picture of Madonna is EVERYTHING. My favorite picture of her ever. She looks so ridiculous, and yet a teeny tiny bit bad ass at the same time. Like a little spark of her badassery is still in there, but the ridiculousness has almost completely taken over.
It’s not her age itself that’s the problem, it’s her plastic surgeries to try to deny her age and her desperation that are so off-putting. And with her, any attempts at being a “bass ass” feel so phony and try-hard (as opposed to, say, Tina Turner who made it seem so natural, even in her 50’s). Maybe it’s because Madonna has always relied on manufactured image rather than talent? I don’t know, but other singers can carry it off in their 50’s and even later, but Madonna just cannot.
Madonna looks like Joan Rivers !!
I was thinking Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Gloria Swanson in ‘Sunset Boulevard’.
Wayland Flowers’ “Madame”
Norma Desmond
That would be Nora Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson in ‘Sunset Boulevard’.
I had ripple-soled shoes in the early 60’s. They were a real pain to clean if you stepped in doggy doo.
I guess Madonnas never heard of the phrase aging gracefully, which doesn’t mean trying to keep up with 20 yr olds. She could perform well until whatever age she wants to stop that’s fine. Maybe she shouldn’t be dancing and moving around so much on stage any more. I think that ship has sailed a long time ago.
after the year we’ve had with ferguson did madonna really try and say racism isn’t as bad currently as ageism?
I am about ready to turn 61 and everything shifted or sagged or got grey in the past couple of years.
I can no longer pretend to be 30, or forty, or heck even 50.
I find I need to let go of so much to have room for what is now.
It’s good, but different.
As we age, we distill and become more the essence of what we always were. S
Great insight Job.
Good comments Joh. I just turned 62 and fully embrace the physical changes that come with age, I just deal with them realistically. My exercise routines are different, my eating habits are different, my sleep patterns are different. However I’ve never felt the need to inject myself with anything other than flu shots, don’t have implants, facelifts or spend gazillions of dollars on facials and miracle creams. I dress differently now, mostly for comfort rather than the latest styles. You just get on with a different and often more rewarding time of your life. I’m semi-retired, a Reiki therapist working primarily with cancer patients, I write my own blog, things I never seemed to have time for when I was younger. So Madonna’s strenuous and desperate measures to stay youthful and relevant now seem kind of pitiable. Trying to hold back time is like trying to push water uphill, at some point she’s going to have to give in and embrace it like a mature woman, not like a 20-something wannabe.
I give her props..this woman can hold her own in our changing society. She is strong, still beautiful, great shape, looking better than majority of Americans, can’t really say anything bad about her. I hope she recovers from the fall and keep on performing!