Madonna only gives a full glimpse of her face every five months or so. And whenever that happens, it starts a new round of “my God, what’s going on with Madonna” conversations. What’s going on with Madonna? The same thing that’s been going on with Madonna for YEARS. Madonna has just decided to remake her entire face and body until she’s completely unrecognizable. This isn’t a case of “wow, those fillers look bad” or “her BBL is really obvious.” Madonna got ass implants, breast implants and an entirely new f–king face. Here’s Madonna’s latest TikTok:
Get your kids off TikTok. Do it now! pic.twitter.com/mHK8mKEQxj
— Ahmed al-Tunis (@altunisahmed) April 3, 2022
It’s a whole mess. While Madonna uses filters on Instagram and TikTok, this is how she looks now. We’ve seen this in paparazzi candids and awards shows for several years now. Madonna argues that it’s feminist for her to do whatever she wants to her body and face, but I don’t even think it’s a matter of feminism or misogyny. This is about Madonna hating her age and always chasing “youth.” And it just makes me sad.
It's interesting how blasé we are about the fact that so many of our leading cultural icons are terribly ill. pic.twitter.com/IslvBQwkXE
— Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) April 3, 2022
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Is she on something?
That’s what I was thinking too
She’s had several hip and knee surgeries in the last few years to treat injuries she accumulated from decades of dancing and performing: I’ve seen rumors that she developed a painkiller addiction around the time when the surgeries started (or possibly even before the surgeries, if she was self-medicating — a lot like Prince who was self-treating his dance injuries). It would explain the irrational behavior.
Thank you. I have been saying the very same thing for a long while now as well as the Prince comparison. When she was singing in to a hair brush about fried fish? I’m sorry but something isn’t right. Where does she live now, perhaps it’s easier to obtain prescription pain killers there than it is here these days.
I think this is probably the real driver here. I would not be surprised if we find out in the coming years about a painkiller addiction.
She was always preaching about her healthy lifestyle and she doesn’t seem to do that anymore. Her eyes are so glazed over that it wouldn’t surprise me if she was on something.
I’ve noticed that too & recently reflected on how strange it was to see Madonna, of all people, posting pics of herself eating Cheetos or having a big glass of wine in the mornings. I used to really admire her fitness years ago. And looking at her tiny pinpoint pupils in this post makes it pretty clear there’s, um, something pharmaceutical going on.
She has a bunch of kids now, I hope for their sake it’s just some sort of Madonna performance art.
Look at her opioid pinpoint pupils in the same space as the bright light reflecting off her forehead and her lids aren’t even halfway open . I don’t think there’s any question that she’s under the influence of something in the opiate family, and I hope she has someone nearby who has Narcan on hand.
Allegedly.
The pupils always tell the story….
This makes me so sad because at the end of the day, love her or hate her, she is Madonna. She is a cultural icon.
*off to listen to Ray of Light to remind me*
This part. She is a cultural icon and so much of her image has been her embracing her power and sexuality. At the end of the day she has tied those things to youth which makes me sad. I mean older women can be sexy. Helen Mirren is hella sexy, Jane Fonda has always been sexy.
Madonna absolutely can and should do whatever she wants to her own body and at the same time this still feels off.
Look at Cher! She isn’t shy from having work done since the beginning and she is still sexy & hot!! Same with Fonda too!!
Madonna has just gone down a rabbit hole or something….I can barely see her pupils they are SO small!!! Madonna, you need help girl!! Get some please!!
I don’t understand the desire to take opioid’s. I have several scripts and they make me feel awful!! I could never get hooked on them as they make me itch too! I do take a slow release opioid derived patch every 12 hours for pain.
Seriously, our 15yo does NOT know who she is…I showed him photos & he truly had zero recognition.
Yeah, Tina Turner is a goddess at any age. And Debby Harry has had plenty of work done, but still looks human. There were a lot of routes that Madge could have taken to age gracefully.
She looks like Waylan Flowers’ Madame puppet.
I’m not sure why it’s okay for Cher or Jane Fonda to have lots of surgery but not Madonna. Cher looks like she’s made of wax but she doesn’t get the hate. We don’t know what’s actually going on with Madonna. It might not be just about staying young. Michael Jackson’s first nose job was botched. He spent the rest of his life trying to fix his face but it only got worse. Madonna could be in a similar situation.
She looks like she’s wearing a Madonna mask that doesn’t fit very well.
It’s her prerogative to do this to herself but please, lady, stop. You aren’t remotely young anymore and and you’re only look more and more ridiculous as time goes on.
I watch a lot of drag queens and the implants look like a breast plate because she’s so shiny. I do think she looks insane, but I also know she doesn’t care about our opinions on the matter. It’s more just sad to clearly hate aging. Which if you’re growing old and healthy you are lucky.
I agree with your entire comment.
the weird mask-face has been creeping me out for a while now. her insta is f-ing scary. I recently saw an interview with her from the Ray of Light era, and she was gorgeous. she could have been like Meryl Streep or Sharon Stone, who both still look like themselves while having done fantastic “upkeep”. but this? this…”mask” face she has? it’s scary.
and yes…her face, her prerogative to do whatever to it…but honey…just…NO. please stop.
A lot of celebs and even veteran YouTubers on TikTok do not understand how to use or do TikTok trends. Madonna is one of them. In fact there was a TikTok on how it’s weird to see actual celebs on TikTok and many comments agreed. It’s a bit less disconcerting to see them on Instagram.
Anyway that was weird. I can’t be arsed to ask her to lay off the fillers. Just let her be.
The hugely plumped lips and the immobile face are troubling, but it’s the eyes (those are contacts, right?) that bother me most. I’m getting a real “Disney created an animatronic Hall of Pop Stars” feel from this, and it makes me sad. Madonna absolutely has a right to get whatever plastic surgery she wants, but I agree, it seems like desperately hanging onto youth rather than joyful self-creation.
ITA, this is just…sad.
I do believe that a woman should be able to do what she wants to her own body (be it dyeing her hair or getting plastic surgery) but Madonna is taking it to an extreme, and I think it really is because she can’t accept getting older. It’s veering into Uncanny Valley territory IMHO, and I wish she would stop.
“Be able to” in the sense that I don’t think we should have laws dictating what women do to their bodies, but we also need to have conversations about how dangerous, physically and emotionally, it is to have medically unnecessary surgery and do what we can to steer the narrative away from surgery as a forgone conclusion of aging.
@ bettyrose, yes!!! I am looking down the barrel of 60 and there are some things I want to do, not extreme, maybe fill my lips a little again, did it 8+ years ago. And get some major Fraxel done as my face looks awful due to my inability to take care of it, due to health. Going to see a specialist in Houston for another spinal surgery for 2 rotated discs at L4&5, to have them fixed. But I am lucky that I have insurance!!! Haven’t been able to bend over for 2 years now so I haven’t been doing my daily cleansing& treatments either. Plus scared to death of the coronavirus too!!
There comes a point where it begins to feel like some self loathing is involved or why go to such extremes to avoid what we all face: the passage of time?
I agree, it’s really is sad to see Madonna like this.
It’s baaaaad.
It’s so sad to watch her struggle with aging gracefully. Erotica and Bedtime Stories are my favorite albums and I still listen to them when I workout.
Madonna was so breathtakingly beautiful, but she was also really really talented and had a unique message for her era. She could have been an amazing poster child for aging naturally but as a total badass. I’m not saying don’t get the occasional tweak, but chasing youth is an impossible effort. The woman who at 25 was saying this is my sexuality and I own it could also be saying at 60 (??) that we are still viable sexual beings at 60. Chasing eternal youth, sadly, doesn’t say that.
All of this! If anyone could have made aging (naturally) badass it was Madonna. Her choice, of course, but what she’s done to herself over the last 5-10 years is just…I feel sorry for her. She’s obviously struggling *hard* with getting older, which makes what she’s done (and still doing) sad & desperate, not empowering.
Agreed.
I think of Brigitte Bardot, she was a legendary beauty and an icon, and she is one of the few who really allowed herself to get old.
Sometimes I read comments like “she let herself go” honestly looking at Madonna and all the other celebrities obsessed with their youth, I understand BB .
That is exactly what I was going to say. She could have reinvented sexy aging. Instead she is treading into Jocelyn Wildenstein territory. The cheekbones into the narrow chin. The swiss milkmaid braids. The breasts that look like they are about to explode.
My best friend and I were texting about this the last time she did something ridiculous. She could have been someone who continued to be groundbreaking and iconic as she aged, but went for desperate and cliché.
Remember the magazine photo shoot she did after she had Lourdes? She was so naturally gorgeous in that. I wish she would have gone more in that direction.
I agree, it just makes me cringe. It’s sad and wipes out a lot of the respect I had for her rebellious spirit. She was legendary as a trailblazer who didn’t give a sh!t what anyone thought and this just makes her look weak, insecure and like she only cares about what everyone thinks.
Agreed with all of your comments in here. This video made me so sad. She was such an icon to so many women and I grew up with her.
What the hell has she done to her face? I’m a few years younger than her and have never been a big fan, but yikes. She’s crossed the line from chasing youth to “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.”
Being one of her children must be so exhausting.
I think we should be celebrating the fact that this time she’s not on her knees in a variety of supposedly sexually suggestive poses.
Not because women her age can’t be sexy, but because she seems to have lost all self respect and boundaries in this (drug fueled?) desperation to be a teenager.
Her skin looks good for her age, it’s got texture, but it is very taut. Thing is, I bet she wouldn’t have that many wrinkles just by her genetics. My great aunt was 78 when she died and had no wrinkles. None, I remember looking at her in the hospital and being shocked at her skin. Just some under eye bags.
It’s the lips and the cheek implants/filler that looks bad because no one has cheekbones like that. Her head look 👽
Alas I feel bad for her because what choice did she have really? Had she aged naturally, people would have continued to call her old hag and grandma. I feel like if I had money and was Madonna I would feel the pressure of remaining “Madonna”
I’m guessing she’s Botoxed to within an inch of her life, hence the very smooth skin. I’m the same age as she is and I just find it sad. I’m lucky to have great skin and very few wrinkles but there are some things (sagging, loss of volume) you can’t do much about without fairly invasive procedures. It’s not for me. She would still be beautiful without all the work. It’s a shame.
she looks like jocelyn wildenstein 🙁
I can’t imagine the pressure as a star to stay youthful. I’m a 45-year-old attorney and I struggle with accepting the constant changing of my body
Same! I’m 46 and seeing more changes. It’s kinda scary to me tbh. I’m starting to get arthritis and it’s harder to get up and down.
I know, right? I’m just so tired all the time! 😉
I here you all. I am 48 and I was told it’s all down hill after 40. And hell if they weren’t right. My bones hurt in the AM and trying to fight menopausal weight is a B!t$%. But I also don’t like or want to look like Madonna. UGH.
I feel you. I am 45 and there are moments when I don’t want to look in the mirror. But! These moments pass and I take a look in the mirror and see a strong, experienced, fantastic woman who has plenty of years ahead. Women like Helen Mirren, Patti Smith, Meryl Streep are an inspiration and proof that beauty comes from within and accepting the process of getting older is the wisest thing to do.
I’m closing in on 58 and have a lot of wage slave injuries that I have to be mindful about lest I aggravate any of them. Once you reach a certain age you have to concentrate on maintenance – and not of the appearances kind, but in the being able to function in a normal way.
How embarassing for her kids ! She’s the lost Kardashian sister…fake a$$, fake lips, fake everything.
Her face just looks so sore. Also, the way she keeps squashing her breasts into those impossible outfits makes me wince. I remember she was on Graham Norton a couple of years back in an outfit that was so uncomfortable she could barely talk, let alone move. It’s uncomfortable to watch and pretty sad. Like others have said, I’d have expected her to tackle ageing very differently.
I follow Madonna on Instagram and it’s like watching a train wreck. Her desperation for youth at any cost is palpable, and it makes me sad. With all her money, she could have had the best surgeons, but instead she’s become a freak show.
What a trip. I wonder what happened to her spiritual work. It feels to me like the competitiveness that made her work so hard took a wrong turn somewhere. I hope she gets assistance.
I am sad that in 2022 there is so much pressure that our celebrities need to go through extreme surgeries to look like they came from another planet. This related also to to Chrtistie Brinkley’s piece. Unfortunately there is something very toxic, constrasting, sad, about saying you’re a feminist you can do whatever you want with your body and at the same time, being so afraid to get older as a women that you need to do everything possible to deny the real look of your age so that you can possibly retain some sexual attractiveness or not be invisible? what is the statement here exactly? It just doesnt make sense.
I get an ominous feeling from this. IMO she looks sky high on opiates. I can’t get past her eyes to notice the rest of the work. If she needs help I hope she gets it soon. Something about this feels like a tragedy in the making.
Opiates & plastic surgery fuel each other. The moments of clarity & shame drive the cycle ad infinitum.
She’s become the complete antithesis of what she first started being — independent, forceful, not taking any male sh*t, making her own way, exploring all types of music. Now she’s turned her back on aging honestly, instead she’s complying with male stereotypes of what is considered beautiful, sexual and acceptable, resorting to extensive surgeries, implants, botox, fillers, whatever to cling to the sinking ship of her youth. I honestly think there’s something wrong with her mentally and/or she’s addicted to a variety of meds because of the punishing regime of exercise and dancing over the decades. It’s pathetic.
Why is it that I feel such pity for her, but not people like Cher and Dolly? I guess bc D&C are more open about it and not as extreme so it feels less desperate?
Anyone else feel this way?
I feel the same way — I think it’s because with both Cher and Dolly I get a sense of joy from how they present themselves. I don’t see any of that with Madonna. I really hope she’s happier than I think she probably is, based on how she comes across.
I think that feeling is because we know how strongly we, the public, impact(ed) her image of herself. Cher and Dolly have had some perspective, at least in public. Madonna always complained about how she and Tom Cruise were always the butt of the jokes, then she would go act especially wacky to mock us. Some kind of self destructiveness.
I have no words. WTF?!
So odd and I hope she’s got joy in her life. BTW this is the first time in forever that I have had anything to do with a maga social media, in-person or other contact.
I hate that she has become so pathetic, she was a goddess in the 80’s/early 90’s.
Madonna used to change herself to project a different artistic vision – she was ahead of the game and influenced others. Now, she’s totally behind the game and being influenced by others. It’s so strange because she once spoke authentically – I have no idea what she’s trying to do now.
Just trying to keep up with the zeitgeist, I guess … and the times have left her behind. I still remember when Taylor Swift’s video for “Bad Blood” featuring Kendrick Lamar came out, featuring Selena Gomez, Mariska Hargitay, Ellen Pompeo, Karlie Kloss, Zendaya, and about 20 other celebrities. Then a month later, Madonna releases the video for “Bitch, I’m Madonna” featuring Nicki Minaj, with cameos from Chris Rock, Katy Perry, Beyonce (for about three seconds), and others. Had the video come out before “Bad Blood,” we’d all be talking about Madonna, not Taylor. As it was, all anyone could see was Madonna trying to ride Taylor’s coattails. And Nicki Minaj stole the video from Madonna, anyways.
You’re so right about times leaving her behind: anecdotally as an example, I didn’t even know about her “Bitch I’m Madonna” vid until you mentioned it just now. But I’ve rewatched Taylor’s “Bad Blood” probably 200+ times. And I’m Gen-X, def not young.
Well, it might be that she was always chasing the zeitgeist. She seemed groundbreaking to me, but I wasn’t really aware of the NY ball scene from which she got her inspiration.
I understand how she feels. I loathe getting older and spend most of the year dreading my next birthday, but there are ways to keep your face from going to hell without looking like a cartoon! With all of her cash, she can’t find a plastic surgeon with a conservative approach? I live in Nowheresville and am not a tycoon and have found two who can do fillers very naturally.
It’s a predictable finale for a narcissist.
Now that’s a sad truth.
You nailed it Constant. I’ve been an observer of Madonna ever since I was a kid in the 80s bopping along to her music, and nothing about how things have ended up is surprising to me.
I agree it’s sad…aging is hard of course, especially for someone with her profile. It’s the idea that she or any woman feels they have to look a certain way and that way only. I support her right to choose but so many women are choosing to look exactly the same and I just wonder…do you like how that looks or do you think as a woman you now must look like that?
I’m most grateful that Madonna is educating the masses about what NOT to do to yourself if you want to look even moderately human. But all power to her if this is how she wants to look. I hope she’s happy – after all, that all that matters. But to be honest, she looks very out of it in the little video.
She just looks like a miserable person. There is no happiness to her posts. Just the pall of anger, resentment, and joylessness. During her earlier years there was general sense that she was having fun with her fame and success. The only time I ever really like her as a human being was her Ray Of Light phase. She looked the most beautiful. There was a softness. Probably because of Lourdes’ birth. Over the years she’s just gotten hardened and bitchy. Her music hasn’t been good for a long time.
That is genuinely one of the most disturbing things I have seen, her eyes look dead and her teeth look all yellowed and stained, and OMG, those fillers, her face looks painfully taut. She is obviously ill. I wonder if her 27 year old boyfriend is also an addict, it might explain that bizzare relationship.
That tiktok she posted popped up on my fyp and was so bizarre and unsettling I actually blocked her so I don’t see her content.
Her goal is to pass for 33 instead of 63, and honestly, she kinda does. It’s plastic surgery, but it’s good plastic surgery. Again: She’s 63.
And not only is this behaviour not-new, it’s literally what she’s been doing her whole adult life. She’s always been about the attention, always been about shocking people with brazen sexuality. Her first major hit was “Like a Virgin” and it stirred up plenty of pearl-clutching at the time. And remember the cone-bras? The Sex book? She has always been like this.
I’m not sure what my point is other than, “Madonna is still the G.O.A.T. of getting people to talk about her.” I mean, it worked on me. *shrug*
to an extent, you’re right…but using shocking lyrics, exaggerated-bosom clothing and “boudoir”/bondage photography to get folks to talk is one thing.
permanently altering your appearance to look “young” while you only wind up looking freakish and strung-out is another.
yes, she wanted to people to talk about how EDGY! and SHOCKING! she and her lyrics and clothing are. but I can almost guarantee that people talking about how freakish she looks, how sad her existence is, and how she appears to be strung out on opioids is NOT the “talking about me” that she would want.
and PS, she does NOT pass for 33. IMO, anyway.
I’m going out on a limb and saying that she doesn’t pass for 33 in most peoples opinion. Or 43, or 53. Especially in unfiltered photos. She looks completely unlike herself and yes, strung the hell out, just like you said. No one’s talking about how edgy she is now. The words sad, pathetic, delusional and desperate are being used to describe her. If she’s so desperate for attention that being the subject of ridicule and pity is what she considers having people talk about her, she’s even more narcissistic than I’ve always thought she was. She does look freakish. It’s disturbing.
In what world dose Madonna look 33 ? She looks nowhere near 33 sadly more like 83 .
You don’t see mentally healthy, well-adjusted and balanced people being superstars and super famous. Only narcissists and mentally unwell chase it, live it and do anything to keep it.
Even the ones we like. Remember that next time you fawn over someone famous. It’s not a life well-adjusted individuals like or want.
We would see a lot less egoism, gross wealth and face transplants if they were all healthy.
I’m so ready for celebrity culture to blow up and go away.
The video of Madonna makes me so sad. She is clearly not well.
“You don’t see mentally healthy, well-adjusted and balanced people being superstars and super famous”
THIS. As someone who’s had some notoriety in my micro-niche on the web, even I can see how unhealthy it is for a person’s mental health. It turns your psyche inside out – it puts all your mental eggs in an external basket, and can make it difficult to know who YOU are, separate from the projections of others. And again, I’m saying this as someone who’s known only in a tiny niche… It I can only imagine how decades of worldwide fame would mess with a person’s psychology.
Secure people don’t desire fame.
She lookes more like Bette Davis everyday. I love Bette!!
If she’s dealing with painkiller addiction or something similar, I hope she gets the help that she needs. As for her seeming bitter, this is a person who has weathered quite a bit the patriarchy’s emotional violence for decades. Between that and everything else she may be dealing with, her not exactly being Pollyanna is somewhat understandable.
I remember reading hand-written letters she wrote at age 19, that are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (fantastic museum, btw)… even then there was a very bright, if over-confident, woman charting her course… she was to attend university in NY, but basically said it was a waste of her time and talent. I agree she’s likely a narcissist – I have one in my family, and in his mid-50’s he’s starting to look like he’s got a plastic doll mask instead of a face. Sad. He’s never been able to handle aging, having been quite the Chad when he was younger. Has reinvented himself, so to speak, several times – bodybuilding/gym rat phase; hairdresser/black turtlenecks phase…
At this point, though, Madonna appears to be suffering from “body dysmorphia” – she’s like Jocelyn Wildenstein… way past just trying to fight aging.
Morphing into. a Bratz doll now?