In the bustling fashion district, where creativity dances with vibrancy, we are reminded of the words from the Quran, 'Indeed, Allah is with those who are patient' (2:153), and from the Bible, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (Philippians 4:13). These photos, captured by Mitchell Royel, reflect the spirit of resilience and artistic freedom. Please note that all images, including those of Madonna, belong to Mitchell Royel and are strictly prohibited from distribution without the explicit consent of Mitchell Royel, Mitch Leyor, or The Star Camp Agency. During this creative moment, we were vibing to 'Unapologetic Bitch' by Madonna, soundtrack celebrating unapologetic individuality.
Thirty-one bulbs around the mirror.
I counted them while a stylist fixed my hair for the fourth time.
Thirty-one little suns, all aimed at one chair.
Then she walked in.
And every one of those bulbs made sense.
Blonde waves, a little wild, like the wind owed her money.
Peach robe so sheer it's more of a rumor.
Gray lace underneath.
A fishnet glove on one hand, fingers half-bare,
like she's ready to fight or ready to pray
and she hasn't decided which.
Crosses at her throat.
Rosary beads spilling down her chest
like she raided a cathedral on her way to a nightclub.
Bracelets stacked on her wrist: black, gold, green.
She sits in front of the thirty-one bulbs.
She doesn't check her angles.
She doesn't ask the room how she looks.
She puts her gloved hand to her cheek,
rests her chin on her knuckles,
and stares into that glass
like she's interrogating a witness.
And the witness is her.
Let me be clear about something,
because people love to be unclear about her.
She is controversial.
Pick a front. Any front.
Religion.
She put the sacred and the sensual in the same frame
and dared you to look away.
She wore the rosary like jewelry
and the Vatican never forgave her.
Or maybe it did.
Maybe that's the part that scared them.
Sex.
She wrote the book. Literally.
Put it in metal covers and mylar bags
and let the whole country clutch its pearls in public
while it read every page in private.
Age.
She refused to disappear on schedule.
That's the real crime.
Not the corset. Not the kiss on live TV.
The crime is that she kept showing up
after the industry printed her expiration date.
They call it desperate.
I call it a woman declining to be erased.
Race.
People have fought about her and culture.
About what she borrowed, who she lifted,
who she credited and who she didn't.
That fight is real, and it's not mine to close.
Genre.
Pop. Dance. Ballad. Electronic. Something else entirely.
She never stayed in one room long enough
for anyone to lock the door behind her.
So yes.
She's controversial.
On almost every front you can name.
But here is the one thing she has never been accused of.
She has never been accused of being the man's puppet.
Think about it.
Back in the day, a soda company paid her millions for a commercial.
Then she dropped a video with burning crosses
and the soda company ran for the exits.
Pulled the ad. Scrubbed it clean.
And she kept the video.
She kept the song.
She kept her name on her own work.
The machine came to buy her,
and the machine left with nothing but a receipt.
That's not a scandal.
That's a blueprint.
You can call her shameless.
You can call her calculating.
You can call her a lot of things,
and people have, loudly, for decades.
But nobody serious calls her owned.
Here's what nobody tells you about backstage.
It's not glamorous.
It's a factory with better lighting.
Clothing racks stand like a line of suspects.
Sequins. Leather. Somebody's borrowed fur.
A woman in black with a headset says two minutes
the way a guard says lights out.
A guy with a camera hides in the dark corner,
waiting for the moment you forget he's there.
That's the shot they want.
The one where you look honest.
They'll sell your honesty back to you at a markup.
And everybody here is smiling.
Everybody here is grateful.
Everybody here signed something.
Me too.
I signed it on the hood of a car in a parking garage.
Didn't read page six.
Page six is where they keep your soul.
Page six says they own the face you make
when you think no one's watching.
That's what happens when you team up with the man.
You don't become a partner.
You become a prototype.
He doesn't want your voice.
He wants your silhouette.
He wants your jawline in a billboard frame
and your opinions in a locked drawer.
He'll give you the lights.
He'll give you the rack of clothes that aren't yours.
He'll give you thirty-one bulbs.
And all it costs is the thing the bulbs were supposed to show.
Here's the list. The real one. The one page six won't print.
One.
You stop hearing your own voice.
At first you just soften it.
A word here. A joke there.
Then one day you open your mouth
and a press release falls out.
Two.
Your rebellion becomes a product line.
They take the thing that made you dangerous,
shrink it down, stitch a tag on it,
and sell it in three colors at the mall.
Your anger fits in a shopping bag now.
Congratulations.
Three.
You get comfortable.
Comfort is the quietest leash ever invented.
Nobody yanks it.
They just make the room so warm
you forget the door was ever open.
Four.
You can't walk away.
Because now there's the mortgage. The image. The team.
The people who eat because you behave.
The man didn't buy your freedom.
He financed it,
and the interest rate is your spine.
Five.
The mirror stops recognizing you.
And that's the cruelest one.
Because the mirror doesn't care about your contract.
The mirror doesn't sign contracts.
The camera lies. It's paid to.
The edit lies. It's paid more.
The billboard, the feed, the magazine:
all of it is a deal somebody shook hands on.
But the mirror?
The mirror is the last honest employee in the building.
It doesn't retouch.
It doesn't negotiate.
It just shows you who's sitting in the chair.
And when she sits in that chair,
gloved hand at her face,
crosses catching the light,
she looks at the glass like she's daring it to flinch.
It doesn't.
Neither does she.
And don't tell me this is about her skin.
Don't tell me this is about mine.
The man doesn't care what color you are.
He cares what color your money is.
He'll put anybody's face on a can.
Black, white, brown, whatever,
rich kid, poor kid, small-town kid with good bones,
the deal is the same deal.
The fine print is the same fine print.
Sign here. Smile there. Stay in frame.
Co-option doesn't check your background.
It checks your price.
So this isn't about one woman.
It isn't about one shoot.
It's about anybody who ever sat under the lights
and felt the warm, soft pull of a hand on their shoulder
saying join us, it's easier.
It is easier.
That's the trap.
She left the room eventually.
No fanfare. No announcement.
Just the door closing and the air changing,
the way it does when something significant
decides it's done with you.
After she was gone, we shot the next thing on the schedule —
some product stuff, the guys holding up items for the camera,
tags visible, nothing dramatic.
That's all it was.
Something to do with our hands
after meeting the Queen of Pop.
The woman with the headset says one minute.
The photographer steps out of the dark.
The stylist hits my hair one last time.
And she's still in my head.
Still sitting at that mirror.
Still asking the glass the only question that matters:
Is that still you?
I don't know what my answer is yet.
I know I'll take the check.
I know I'll give the lens the look they asked for.
I know my face will hang above some highway
in a city I've never been to.
But tonight, I'm going to hold onto something.
Not a product. Not a tag.
Just a question.
Because one day I'll want to sit in a chair like that.
One day there'll be bulbs around a mirror
and they'll all be pointed at me.
And when that day comes,
I want to look into the glass
the way she does.
Not checking my angles.
Not asking the room.
Just making sure
the person staring back
still can't be bought.
Lights up.
Places.
Smile.
-Deck