For the most part, I dislike armchair diagnosticians, but Madonna’s profound body dysmorphia is plain to see. Madge has been messing with her face for well over a decade, but in recent years, she has gone waaaaay overboard with the cosmetic work and plastic surgery on her face and body. This became a topic of conversation again during and after the Grammys, when Madonna turned up looking like a Bratz doll and then played the victim when people suggested that her cosmetic work looks sh-tty. Well, Madonna is now making a “joke” about it:
Look how cute i am now that swelling from surgery has gone down. Lol 😂 pic.twitter.com/jd8hQyi2Az
— Madonna (@Madonna) February 20, 2023
What I don’t get is… yeah, she actually does look less puffy. She doesn’t look filled to the brim with fillers and painkillers. She looks like she yassified her puffy Grammys face. So… is that the “joke”? Look at me, I’m not puffy anymore? All of this is just so… aggravating. I was never some ride-or-die Madonna fan, but to watch her as she tries and fails to be a 20-something Instagram provocateur is just weird.
I’ve also spent too much time trying to figure out what she’s done in recent years. I think she’s gotten a chin implant and something done to her cheeks. The lip fillers are clear and overdone. Don’t forget about her ass implants as well.
Photos courtesy of Madonna’s social media, Backgrid, Getty.
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- Beverly Hills, CA – Madonna was seen arriving at Mr. Brainwash Art Museum in Beverly Hills for the Grammys after-party. Pictured: Madonna BACKGRID USA 6 FEBRUARY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Beverly Hills, CA – Madonna was seen arriving at Mr. Brainwash Art Museum in Beverly Hills for the Grammys after-party. Pictured: Madonna BACKGRID USA 6 FEBRUARY 2023 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Madonna makes me sad with all this plastic surgery.
She seems to be following the Kardashians instead of being the trendsetter she has always been.
Madonna was famously in the gym constantly and now she had butt implants? Why? Why?
She is a self made success. Creative person, why doesn’t she turn to something behind the scenes.
I hate to say this but Mick Jagger looks every minute of his true age, can you imagine what he’d look like if he started injections and fillers? No.
Why behind the scenes? So women should hide after a certain age? I mean ya I think she’s got some issues with the plastic surgery, but I think the problem is we don’t see enough older people in FRONT of the scene!
We shouldn’t hide because we have wrinkles and saggy tits. Ya maybe people can’t do stadium tours anymore (although Tina Turner did them a looong time) but that also doesn’t mean she should be relegated to the bleachers. I kinda think that’s the point she’s making.
Being behind-the-scenes may have changed the way Madonna values herself. It would be less about her physical image and more about her contributions and talent…I mean, that’s the hope.
Like obviously she is not well at this point.
THIS. Makes me sad for her.
I totally agree with you. I happened upon a interview Madonna did when she was turning 50. She was owning that! She looked amazing. Now, everything about her is plastic and it makes me so sad. The woman who was such a trendsetter and DGAF what people thought, now seems to be all about what people think.
Exactly, she was such a trendsetter and didn’t give a single f what people said, not doing this to herself and owning her age would’ve been so badass.
Celebrities can age naturally if they have the talent to back it up. But Madonna wasn’t a “talented” singer, she sold an image. She was the fast food version of music, extra salt and fatty flavors to cover up the lack of quality ingredients. That type of celebrity cannot age or their entire “worth” goes away. It’s why Madonna appears so desperate while older talented women do not (Dolly Parton doesn’t appear desperate despite surgery because she gained success through talent and a sparkling personality, while Madonna gained success through sexual antics and image).
@MRS. KRABAPPLE It’s really sad to see Madonna go through this but your opinion is totally invalid and laughable . Madonna deserves each and every minute of success she’s achieved in her decades-long career. You know why? Because there are millions out there who don’t listen to ONLY country music ( I love Dolly Parton but tbh, I’ve only ever known three of her songs. They are great songs obviously). Those two are completely different artists with the absolute best careers and discographies. Madonna did sell her image but she also had a lot of creative control and power over her work. Even now she wants to work and act like a 20 yo on SM and all. Which is really sad but my 33 yo back hurts somedays and I feel lazy, then I think to myself, Madonna must be twerking somewhere, so No Excuses. Lol.
This is what happens when the reputable surgeons won’t touch you anymore and you start sliding down the slippery slope of less and less competent work. Officially in Jocelyn Wildenstein territory here.
Exactly.
Sharon Stone and Michelle Pfieffer, same age as Madonna. Have also had a boat load of work done but still look like “themselves”. Not “WTH???”
There’s a difference between ‘daily’ makeup and ‘stage/drag/performance’ makeup.
Madonna has ‘stage’ level plastic surgery. Probably looks fine to the audience at the back of the stadium. I encountered this in Vegas where I saw a ‘Rat Pack’ review. The man playing/singing as Frank Sinatra bore an uncanny resemblance to Frank Sinatra on stage until you saw him up close at the meet and greet after the show. Then the plastic surgery was shocking to the eye.
All I could think of was “what happens to him when the show closes?”
I’m sad for her. I hope she realized that nobody is cute at 65. FFS, have some dignity.
I’m mostly confused bc…she looks the same? More or less. I don’t see a huge difference in puffiness? Am I missing something?
You’re not alone. More flattering lighting, maybe, plus better defined eyebrows?
I’m guessing her personal photographer took it and edited it.
Poor lady… she’s never going to turn back the clock.
Still looks like an alien from a z-list sci-fi show though…..
Instagram photos are filtered and photoshopped.
When she appeared on the stage at the public event we saw reality.
I think that there’s a bit less swelling, that’s for sure. I’m just wondering if she’s had the same procedure as Demi Moore right before she had that runway modeling session. Apparently, the timing was off, and Demi took the stage while her face was still swollen, and she ended up looking like a marionette. Months later, Demi was photographed looking more like the person who used to get compliments on how youthful she looked at 50. In this case, it looks like Madonna’s procedure hasn’t altogether settled yet.
It really is a shame. I feel like she’s almost ruined her own legacy with how out of control this has gotten? I feel bad writing that.. I believe it’s every person’s prerogative to do what they like cosmetically but with Madonna it just seems to be really coming from a desperate place.. beyond the norm of pressures in the industry on any woman. And she has the money to have had the best of the best work – she could have probably aged amazingly well (by celebrity standards) and it’s all just gone in an insane direction. Really sad!
Sighhhhh. I get the pressure on stars to look eternally youthful, so part of this may be on us the public, but still, this is not good. I just saw Bruce Springsteen in concert a few days ago and he looks great. He looks older, for sure, but he looks amazing (and still pretty hot!) and fit and his energy level for 3 hours is through the roof. I feel like this is the standard she should be aiming for.
Joan Rivers once said that you do plastic surgery for yourself, & if it makes you happy go for it. Clearly, Madonna agrees & wants to look a certain way. I think she looks like an alien and it makes me sad that someone who likes to spout being yourself clearly has an issue when she looks in the mirror. Aging gracefully is something everyone will deal with when their time comes but it seems to me that Madonna, as always, is more look at me than for herself. It’s seems sad & steeped in insecurity. Not at all what I would expect from the Material Girl from the 80s
Madonna hurt her hip and she cannot really dance anymore. So she’s unable to be in the sort of shape that defined her, in her own mind, as unattainable and a “knock-out.” Her fixation on her face is a combo of so many different things, but she is definitely not defying the patriarchy with these surgeries and fillers. The problem with so many of these people is that they only see their “smooth” skin, and not the fact that it is abnormally smooth, or that it dimples when they move their muscles and try to speak. That’s the horror of it. And you cannot undo an overfilled face without other surgeries, because the skin has been stretched to the max. The woman on Shrinking, who was on Cougartown before that, and other guest spots before that, is also an example of this. When she’s totally still, her face looks plump and youthful, lips full, but when she speaks, you see how much of a struggle it is, the veins straining in her neck, and it just emphasizes, rather than deemphasizes, how youthful she is not. Each of them would look so much better with nothing done.
More like “look how cute I am now that I can control the camera, filter, and image.” I saw her months ago in Manhattan and she looks older than her photos and bloated.
Any swelling, puffiness, stiffness, pulling and filling of the face is better than having a crinkled face. That is the message that Madonna is sending to the world. I have no other explanation for the things that she has done to her face. She is a world celebrity and having wrinkles is not an option. I feel ashamed of our society where looking old is a worse than death.
Is it though? The majority of women do age naturally.
Madonna has never been my taste, but I can appreciate what she is going for. Kind of a Cher-style, damage is already done might as well fuckn embrace it thing. It’s funny.
At this point, I’m asking myself why is Madonna still relevant? She’s entitled to do whatever she wants, we all know she has the money. If she wants to be a 65 y/o woman and pretend she’s 25, that’s her right. I just don’t feel obligated to stroke her ego and tell her she looks good when she clearly doesn’t. I’m done with her desperate “Look at me! Pay attention to me!” behavior. Those who want to pay attention to her can do so, she just needs to quit trying to play the victim every single time she’s criticized.
It has to be cheek implant with fillers on top, right? Plus a full facelift? The way her eyes can’t fully open is concerning but I can’t tell if that is surgery, fillers or too many pain meds. I don’t know if I find the surgery so bad but when she then adds all these filters onto her posts it’s just comical. It’s similar to Vera Wang. You don’t look like that in person so why pretend so hard?
In her “defense” she always sold herself as desirable and sexy so I’m sure it is very difficult to realize that your body and face change no matter who you are. Too bad she doesn’t realize it was her brains and confidence that really made her so successful.
Agree. And if she has cheek implants, perhaps she had to do excess filler to hide the ridge. It’s pretty scary to look at women who have overdone the surgery and filler IRL in the daylight without excessive makeup or photoshop.
I live in LA which makes me an expert lol.
These comments are right on the mark.
No plastic surgery for me.
Even if I could afford it.
Oh wow, in the first photo her fingers are actually very swollen (I think the fishnet gloves are meant to disguise them). Surgeries, even elective ones, can often trigger an outsized autoimmune response — the body wants to repair itself of injury — resulting in systemic inflammation, which in turn puts even more stress on the body. So although she’s overfilled, yeah, there’s probably more happening here. I hope she’s taking good care of herself.
Filler in your hands will actually cause them to swell a lot until it settles — according to my dermatologist. (I’ve never done it but she told me about it after I noticed her hands looked great. She said you have to set aside like 2 weeks where your ok with having really puffy hands — and it’s even worse in summer).
This is what I don’t get. She has the money and the connections (I assume), to get her face work done by the most skilled of surgeons. Why does it look like she went to a cut rate doctor in an alley somewhere?
I *think* that the issue is that she wants more interventions than can be done well.
She is likely going to top notch docs, but then she asks for “level 10″on everything when what would be BEST for her is “level 6/7”. The doc isn’t going to tell Madge NO. The doc isn’t going to turn down the $.
It’s a little like when I was in my 20s and was dying my hair super blonde. I was getting my whole head done. My stylist would occasionally suggest adding some low lights for contrast and I would refuse. To me if was the lighter the better. And while I probably would have looked better with some low lights, I was happy with my flourescent fake blonde. I think these celebs have the same “blindness”.
No comment.
She can’t outrun old age. No amount of cosmetic surgery, fake butt, fake boobs, etc. will stop time. As others have said here, Madonna’s fear of aging is pathetic. Embrace it instead of being the foul-mouthed, sarcastic, self-obsessed famewhore you’ve always been and grow as a person instead of letting desperation for relevancy be the only guiding principle in your life.
Madonna is an icon and a legendary badass and its sad that for far too many people, incl Madge, that’s not enough. IMO these desperate acts are diminishing her legacy. Its shocking how many celebs are willing to tamper with their faces, which is usually their bread and butter. You’d think that all of the examples of plastic surgery gone wrong would serve as cautionary tales but nope. Some of those plastic surgeons should have been sued into oblivion.
Dr. Gary Linkov and Lorry Hill have videos on YouTube about the many procedures Madonna and other celebrities have undergone. Dr Linkov recorded a special video after Madonna’s appearance at the Grammys. He specifically talked about fat transfer and how it altered the proportions of her face.
I follow her on Instagram and I feel embarrassed for her. She is trying so hard to be young, sexy, and relevant. and doesn’t know or care how ridiculous she appears. She could have been a trail blazer for powerful women aging, but instead is being dragged kicking and screaming into the world of old age.
I’m 40 and she’s been in the spotlight before I paid attention to that type of thing. Seems to me that she’s always been copying whatever’s the hot trend at the time (Material Girl, even her earliest look she just looked like a risqué Cyndi Lauper). She looks like a nightmare and I have no respect for this “legacy” of hers that she feels warrants her a pass/respect. If I saw her on the street I would cross it.
Wish she were in the news for her music 🎶 instead 💕
Of course that’s photoshopped. Anyone remember when she put her face on that Australian girl’s photo and posted it as her own?
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRnFkQWW/
OMG that’s just another level of crazy 😱 like she needs help ASAP.
Well my beef with her dates back decades to when she was using Black people and the LGTB community for shock value. Look at me – i’m such a provocateur screwing… gasp.. Black men!!!
Omg look at me all over this (hold your pearls ladies this is shocking and offensive) Black priest (some actor) in the Like a Prayer video!!! With burning crosses! What a fun day for a Black actor to be in close proximity to burning crosses while some mediocre White woman gyrates and jumps around near him.
I’m soooo edgy and next level! Cause screwing Black men is so offensive shocking and avant garde. GTFOH. She has always been vile. Always.
That movie Truth or Dare really turned me off her. What a self absorbed, narcissistic, vapid woman. At one point she’s talking with her dancers and monopolizing the entire conversation. A Black woman tried to say something and Madonna shushed her “I’m talking!” It was Kamala Harris “I’m speaking” in reverse. Of course she shushed a Black woman and is now so desperate to have those same features that she’s willing to look like a blow up doll instead. Those lips are ridiculous on her. I’m old enough to remember her original features.
After I saw the film I said her aging is going to be a category 5 disaster. And here we are.
She hustles I’ll give her that. But really she’s another pop star with a grating, whiny voice who takes up way too much space in the universe.
Agree: her skill is her hustle (the result of her intense need for attention). She has appropriated every trend attributed to her. Sure, she brought worldwide attention to vogueing…years after gay POC invented it. Remember her “I’m a geisha” phase? So much cringe.
She was up to the same BS not too long ago when she used the N-word because she thought it was the “cool” thing to do. She then got mad because she was called out for using a racial slur.
She laughed it off and was offended that people were calling her racist because she couldn’t possibly be because she has black kids.
She definitely pulling a Kardashian here Cosplaying as a black woman with all these plastic surgery for the attention.
I agree with you 100%, SideEye
@Trillion I forgot about the geisha phase. Omg “so much cringe” is right! And the Vogue thing was just awful. @Coco I remember this as well. I find her hellah racist and I’m not surprised at all she uses her Black kids as a shield when she is called out on her crap. Surprised she didn’t bring up all the Black men she slept with – how can I be racist? I slept with the NBA.
@Zaftig & Kitty (love your name) thank you. It annoys me that she gets a pass on all this problematic behavior and has for decades.
Someone (un) riddle me this for me Madonna and lots of famous people know the dates for these shows. So why don’t they schedule their work in advance so that it settles in time?
Reminds me of the episode of Sex and the City when Samantha got a refresh and scared folk at an event the next day.
I’m just here to point out how hilarious it is that she has a royal family style ribbon that has a picture of a penis and balls instead of the Queen or King. 😂
I get the impression that for a lot of commentators here it’s fine when people use plastic surgery, just please don’t make it too obvious. And with Madonna’s face, it’s become very obvious. And we’re uncomfortable with that why exactly? She’s only doing what she has done for many years already, and for what she was celebrated a decade ago.
“The majority of women doesn’t…” You think? How many of your friends in their late thirties, forties use a little Botox here and there, get laser treatments, a little bit of filler? And that’s fine. But perhaps we could try to be honest about it, at least among friends. I can’t afford all these nice facials and creams that my friend gets, but at least she doesn’t pretend to me that it’s all “sleep enough, drink water”, you know?
To those who point to how great Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger look: Studies have shown again and again how society treats women who dare to visibly age; who decide not to dye their hair, for instance. Unless we celebrate women who are comfortable with showing their age (and I know: we’re very slowly getting there), why do we compare Madonna to them?
At the Grammys she looked like the child of Johnny Depp and the Staypuff Marshmallow Man, so yes, this is an improvement.
People are allowed to do what they want to their bodies, and the rest of us are allowed to think that what they’ve done to their bodies looks terrible and perhaps indicates deep-seated psychological issues.
She can do a lot to tone it down with her face and I hope she does. She needs realistic and truthful people around her to tell it like it is. Somehow, I don’t think this is the case.
I agree with you. i”m sure she has a lot of yes men/women and a** kissers around her.
I am Madonna’s age. She is for sure problematic from way back, but I sill love her. My favorite era was her amazing Ray of Light album, when she was in her 40s and owning it. Aging in many ways sucks (although I appreciate the wisdom I’ve gained). I’ve had botox and some fillers and some other interventions, but I’m forgoing all that now. Concentrating on fitness, health and eating clean. But I’m not a public figure under immense public scrutiny!
The more I see of Madonna, the more I appreciate Paulina Porizkova. She’s a patriarchy-defying trailblazer and doesn’t need to announce it.
She’s a bit like a “water added” ham
But she gives us something to discuss to distract from our lives.
Looks like she can pull up her socks by raising her eyebrows.