Madonna Shared a Photo of Her Face Now That the “Swelling From Surgery Has Gone Down”

Just a few weeks after publicly responding to criticism of the way she looks stemming from a recent appearance at the Grammy Awards, Madonna is poking fun at the conversation around her face with a new photo and funny tweet about the whole situation.

The Queen of Pop shared a snapshot of herself posing in a black jacket and ripped jeans with a “Spiritually Hungry” baseball cap perched atop her copper-red braids. “Look how cute I am now that swelling from surgery has gone down. Lol,” she captioned the photo, adding a cry-laughing emoji. The tweet and photo was, of course, a direct response to the conversation around her appearance, the rampant ageism she experiences in the industry as a 64-year-old pop icon, and the widespread conversation about her alleged use of plastic surgery and fillers, done with her signature unapologetic attitude and razor-sharp wit. And you know what? She does look great!

The singer, who has been a pop culture mainstay since her early days in the ’80s and who evolves her aesthetic as frequently as she experiments with her sound, was not pleased about the post-Grammys discourse. “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women past the age of 45 and feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong-willed, hard-working, and adventurous,” she wrote on Instagram after the ceremony. In true Madonna fashion, she’s going to continue doing things her way. “I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start,” she wrote. “I look forward to many more years of subversive behavior — pushing boundaries [and] standing up to the patriarchy — and most of all enjoying my life. Bow down bitches!”

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