Madonna’s fans got a rare picture of her when her friend Maha Dakhil posted a string of unfiltered photographs to celebrate the pop icon’s 65th birthday.
The hitmaker could be seen in the same black and white ensemble that she showed off in her own social media posts, suggesting that it was photographed during her festivities in Lisbon, Portugal, but unlike Madonna’s own posts, Maha Dakhil didn’t fuss with filters and shared what seemed to be relatively unvarnished photos of her and the Material Girl.
The singer’s fans got a very different image of her when she posted boisterous but smooth-faced videos to her TikTok account.
Maha Dakhil, who’s the Co-Head of Motional Pictures & International Film Groups at the prestigious Creative Artists Agency (CAA), smiled while sporting a lacy white blouse that hung loosely off her shoulder as she posed with Madonna in one shot.
The singer was swathed in a black short sleeve shrug with white tiger-like stripes.
Her long blond hair covered it in the photograph, but she paired the top with a lacy black corset and baggy black pants with a similar striped design and an image of a roaring panther on the front.
Maha clasped one of Madonna’s black-gloved hands in her own as they posed for the photograph.
Unlike Madonna’s usual photographs and videos, which show her with incredibly smooth and detail-free skin, the photograph accentuated her natural complexion while still highlighting her incredible age-defying beauty.
‘Happy birthday to my dear sister, ‘a bride married to amazement’ Viva with that bada** life force. I cherish you,’ Maha gushed in her caption.
She included a second photo of herself smiling as she followed Madonna through the streets of Lisbon as she continued her birthday festivities.
The Like A Prayer musician was now dressed in a cream-coloured costume covered in abstract red and black designs, and she wore angular white cat eye sunglasses invigorated with a crust of gems on the edges of the frames.
Meanwhile, her celebrity agent pal stuck with a simple black dress so as not to steal the limelight.
They appeared to be followed by a considerable crowd of partygoers on the way to their final destination.
The triumphant birthday posts came a day after Madonna announced the rescheduled dates for her Celebration Tour, following a health battle brought on by a severe bacterial infection, and although she’s not shared precisely what the infection was that she was inflicted with, she shared her appreciation soon after being discharged from the hospital in late June.
Almost all of Madonna’s images are filtered, but she certainly looks better in the photographs posted by her friend.
Perhaps her bacterial infection was due to all this scary plastic surgery she’s been having done.
We all know that most celebs have their images airbrushed to take off a few decades anyway, and when it comes down to it, celebrities such as Madonna and Britney Spears are washed-up pop stars who have resorted to being exhibitionists in a frantic bid to get people to pay attention to them.
But hasn’t Madonna always been an exhibitionist? She broke so many boundaries as a young artist and at the height of her stardom, but now she needs to move over to new and upcoming artists. Doesn’t she realise that the spotlight isn’t on her anymore? Unique she is, but now she needs to move over for fresh talent.
In fact, Madonna now looks like a Caucasian Naomi Campbell.
Her face has been tucked in more times than a hotel bedsheet, and the only one that she’s fooling is herself.
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