Every now and again, a Hollywood celebrity that we once firmly filed under ‘bona fide badass’ drops off our radar for a while, only to resurface in the public eye and remind us afresh why we fell in love with them in the first place.

Case in point: Salma Hayek. The Oscar-nominated actor not only commands the stage and screen with ease, but she’s an also an outspoken feminist, a vocal supporter of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, and a fearless campaigner for issues affecting women’s and children’s health and education worldwide.

So when Hayek, who stars in the upcoming Marvel film, Eternals, popped up on our Instagram feeds with a brilliantly defiant message about the ageing process, our love for the actor got a whole lot stronger. 

The Frida actress, who recently celebrated her 53rd birthday, took to Instagram to share a bikini snap from a beach getaway. She looks incredible of course, and as happy and carefree as we’d hope to be if we were on a tropical retreat surrounded by white sands and palm trees.

But in true Hayek style, she also served some inspiring body confidence.

“Yes, tomorrow I turn 53. So!?” she wrote in the accompanying caption, then in Spanish, alongside a sprinkling of celebratory emojis.

So what, indeed? It shouldn’t be radical to see a 53-year-old woman living her best life in a bikini, of course, but in a world filled with pervasive beauty norms and toxic perfectionism, positive representation is hard to come by. As many of Hayek’s A-list friends confirmed when they turned up in the comments, age really is just a number, and a woman’s evolving body is a thing of beauty.

Lenny Kravitz was one of the first on the scene to show his appreciation, commenting: “@salmahayek and it never looked so good!!!!!” 

Elsewhere British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful wrote: “You look so beautiful #bodybeautiful.” Model Cindy Crawford simply left fire emojis in the comments section.

Like a true legend, Hayek later posted a video of herself singing with an all-female mariachi band as the birthday celebrations continued, and another clip capturing the moment her face was pushed into her elaborately decorated birthday cake, because if that’s not a totally empowered woman who’s not afraid of showing her authentic self on the ‘gram, we don’t know what is. 

Keep on doing you, Salma. 

Image: Getty