The Moment
Madonna is back in lingerie and back in bed onscreen, and once again everyone has an opinion about what a 67-year-old woman is allowed to do with her body.
In a new campaign for Dolce & Gabbana’s fragrance line, the pop icon lounges in a plunging black minidress, thigh-high stockings and classic black pumps, flanked by two much younger male models. The ad promotes new versions of the brand’s scent, including The One Eau de Parfum Intense and The One for Men Parfum, marking the 20th anniversary of The One.
The visuals go full fantasy: Madonna locking eyes with a model’s crotch, sketching him as he poses nude, then all three heading to the bedroom for a blindfolded, sheet-grabbing tangle of lace, skin and tossed hair. It is deliberately raunchy, deliberately theatrical and very deliberately Madonna.
More images of Madonna’s new ad campaign for Dolce & Gabbana’s “The One” fragrance! Ad commercial out this Friday with an Italian cover of the Patty Pravo song “La Bambola” #Madonna pic.twitter.com/Kk9lJRQ7nQ
— Rob Jacobs (@robster16) January 5, 2026
This comes right after her naughty-or-nice themed holiday photo shoot, where she posed in vintage-inspired lingerie with her 29-year-old boyfriend Akeem Morris, then switched to a frilly white nightgown for photos with her 13-year-old twin daughters. She clearly has no interest in dialing it down for the sake of anyone’s comfort.
The Take
Here is what I find fascinating: if this exact ad starred a 27-year-old male rock star in bed with two younger women, it would barely make the news. Maybe a few eye-rolls, then everyone moves on. When Madonna does it at 67, it turns into a referendum on aging, motherhood, feminism and ‘dignity’ all at once.
We have decided that older men in cologne ads are ‘sophisticated’ and older women in lingerie are ‘trying too hard.’ That double standard is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Is this the most subtle thing Madonna has ever done? Absolutely not. It is campy, on-the-nose and styled to feel like a high-budget riff on her own Erotica era. But it is also a woman of nearly 70 saying, I still see myself as a sexual being, I still like younger partners, and if that bothers you, that is your business, not mine.
From a brand perspective, Dolce & Gabbana is clearly betting on exactly that tension. The One is 20 years old now; pairing an anniversary scent with an artist who has spent four decades rewriting the rules about what women can do with their bodies is smart synergy. They are selling nostalgia and rebellion in one bottle.
Think of it like this: most fragrance ads are a Hallmark card with lighting. This one is more like a late-night cable movie directed by someone who grew up on Vogue Italia. Whether you love it or hate it, you remember it, which is the point.
And honestly, if a woman who built her empire on provocation suddenly started selling beige respectability, that would be the real identity crisis.
Receipts
Confirmed
- Madonna, 67, stars in a new Dolce & Gabbana fragrance campaign for The One line, featuring two younger male models and bedroom scenes with lingerie, blindfolds and implied intimacy, as seen in the official campaign video released in early January 2026.
- The campaign marks the 20th anniversary of The One and introduces The One Eau de Parfum Intense and The One for Men Parfum, according to brand materials and the ad text.
- Recent holiday photos on Madonna’s official social media show her in vintage-style lingerie with boyfriend Akeem Morris, 29, and separate, more covered looks with her 13-year-old twin daughters, consistent with descriptions in multiple entertainment news reports from late December 2025.
Unverified or Framed As Opinion
- How ‘controversial’ the ad truly is depends on public reaction, which is still unfolding across social media and commentary pieces.
- Any suggestion that the younger men in the campaign are her real-life romantic partners is speculation; in the ad they are models playing characters.
- Interpretations of the brand’s deeper intent beyond promoting a sexy, provocative image for the fragrance are opinion, not stated fact.
Sources (human-readable): Dolce & Gabbana official fragrance campaign video for The One 20th anniversary (released January 2026); major U.S. entertainment news coverage and photo descriptions dated January 8-9, 2026; Madonna’s own publicly available social media posts from December 2025.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you have only half-watched Madonna headlines for the last decade, a quick refresher: she has been pushing sexual and religious buttons since the 1980s, from the Like a Prayer video to the Erotica album and the infamous Sex coffee-table book. Provocative visuals are not a late-in-life phase; they are the brand.
She has also long dated younger men, which the tabloid cycle revisits every few years as if it is shocking news. Fashion houses and fragrance lines have repeatedly used Madonna to sell fantasy and edge, precisely because she brings built-in controversy and global name recognition. This Dolce & Gabbana spot is less a left turn and more a greatest-hits remix.
What’s Next
Expect this campaign to roll out across glossy magazines, billboards and social feeds, with shorter cuts of the ad looping anywhere perfume is sold. Behind-the-scenes clips, extended director’s cuts and stills are almost guaranteed to follow, because a campaign like this is built for viral debate.
The more interesting question is what it does to the bigger conversation around women over 60 in beauty and fashion. Will more major brands take the leap and let older women be something other than ‘timeless’ and softly lit, or will Madonna remain the lone lightning rod who absorbs all the backlash so others can stay safe?
In the meantime, she seems perfectly comfortable being the person who walks into the room, strips down to stockings and stilettos, and dares everyone else to decide how they really feel about aging and desire.
Question for you: When you watch a sexy campaign like this with a 67-year-old woman at the center, does it feel empowering, cringey, or simply business as usual in 2026, and why?
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