Confidence has long been something that model Tyra Banks has in spades, and, as she ages, that hasn’t changed a bit. The former host of America’s Next Top Model took to Instagram to give us a masterclass in embracing our age and loving parts of ourselves that society wants to call undesirable.
“I now have these little wrinkles on the corner of my mouth and I’m kinda feelin’ them,” she captioned the photo. She then turned the question on her followers, asking them “What are you [feelin’] about yourself these days?”
There’s nothing like a milestone birthday to make you reevaluate aging and your relationship with it, and Banks just celebrated her fiftieth birthday last month. Back in September, about three months before her big birthday, Banks told People that she’s “not against” cosmetic procedures as she gets older, but that heretofore she’s “not had age plastic surgery stuff,” although she doesn’t elaborate on what exactly that means.
“I look in the mirror and I don’t feel 50,” she said. “I think 50 is the new 30s.”
Banks—who said in 2018 that she had a nose job in the early days of her modeling career—said that, though she hasn’t enhanced her appearance as she ages yet, “Maybe I’ll need a little something, something,” she said of the future. “But I’m not insecure about it.”
Based off of her recent Instagram post, that much is obvious. And instead of hiding her age, Banks said three months before she turned the big 5-0 that she was so proud of it that “I keep saying I’m 50, even though I’m not, as an excuse,” she said. “When people ask me, I say ‘I ain’t doing that—I’m 50.’ Or ‘I’m just going to tell you what I think, because I’m 50.’”
On her actual birthday last month, Banks went makeup-free in photos, wearing nothing but a fluffy gray robe. “So many fear getting older,” she wrote, per Page Six. “That’s understandable. Things just aren’t the same anymore. Our bodies. Our energy. Our minds. But I gotta say, my mind is FIERCER THAN EVER. Wise, baby.”
Wise enough to proudly embrace those little wrinkles on the corner of her mouth—as we all should.
