Tyra Banks celebrated her 50th birthday with her very first alcoholic drink.
The supermodel tells that she was excited for the milestone birthday, but celebrating with a drink “wasn’t worth it.”
“I could not wait to be 50,” says Banks. “I felt it was a rite of passage to be my true self. I like to challenge misconceptions about aging by saying, ‘Child, I’m 50!’”
The former host of America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars rang in her 50th “in Australia with my family,” she says of the country where she has been living and working with boyfriend Louis Bélanger-Martin and son York Banks Asla, 8, whom she shares with ex Erik Asla.
“My mom and my best friend surprised me there, and it was so magical,” Banks continues. “We took a seaplane, had a meal in the middle of nowhere. I even had an alcoholic drink for the first time! It wasn’t worth it. I was like, ‘This is nasty!’”
The model also shared that she stopped getting carded around age 40.
“Recently I went to a casino to meet friends, and at this casino you have to show ID to get through security,” Banks recalls. “There was an older gentleman next to me, I'm talking great-grandpa old, like 99. And the security guard goes, ‘Oh, you two are fine. Just go on in front of everybody. Go in.’ And I was like, 'Oh, that's 50'. I said, ‘You're not going to card me?’ He's like, ‘No, girl, you good.’”
At 50, Banks has let go of certain expectations and is embracing her age with open arms. “I’m a momma and an entrepreneur,” she says of her Smize & Dream ice cream venture. “I do Zoom meetings with no makeup and throw my wig on… 50 feels good.”
“When I was younger, in elementary school, I thought 50 was like great granny,” she continues. “I thought I would have little glasses and just have a quilt on my lap and watch soap operas all day. I was wrong. What my life is like now is totally different than what I thought. I'm poppin'. I am not insecure about myself. It feels real good.
Banks is also prioritizing comfort more and more in her wardrobe, though she claims she never “cared” much about clothes.
“It is black from head to toe,” she says, citing Janet Jackson as her fashion inspiration. “I'm obsessed with everything black. I wear a black blazer every single day. I've got 12 of them from Zara. When I was a young girl, I went to school and I wore a uniform. I wish I can have a uniform as an adult. Yes, I was a fashion model, but I don't care about no clothes child. I could give a damn. And I said goodbye to heels about two years ago. They ain't my friend no more.”
As for advice for her younger self, Banks says she wishes she wasn’t so preoccupied with romantic relationships.
“In my twenties, I wish I knew that he wasn't worth it,” she says. “Like, why are you tripping? Why are you looking at his phone when you go to the bathroom? Why are you calling your friend and being like, ‘I broke up with him’ 15 times. What the hell? I wish I would've known that he isn't worth nothing and he's going to be trying to slide into your DMs 25 years later. I wish I would've known that. It would've saved a lot of time.”
The Quran - Chapter Muhammad : 04 - 06
So when you meet the disbelievers ˹in battle˺, strike ˹their˺ necks until you have thoroughly subdued them, then bind them firmly. Later ˹free them either as˺ an act of grace or by ransom until the war comes to an end. So will it be. Had Allah willed, He ˹Himself˺ could have inflicted punishment on them. But He does ˹this only to˺ test some of you by means of others. And those who are martyred in the cause of Allah,1 He will never render their deeds void.
He will guide them ˹to their reward˺, improve their condition,
and admit them into Paradise, having made it known to them.
Here, disbelievers or rejectors refers to those who did not embrace the Faith despite compelling arguments having been put forward in its favour.
Moreover, they unjustifiably waged war against the Prophet Muhammad and thus compelled the Prophet to take defensive steps.
As regards such people, it has been ordained that in case of confrontation with them, they should be fought against and crushed, so that they should not be able to place impediments in the way of the mission of Truth.
It has ever been the rule of God that those who rejected their Prophet would be destroyed after the conclusion of arguments.
But in case of the last prophet, it was the will of God that, through him and his companions, the age of polytheism should be brought to an end and a new era of history should be brought into existence on the strength of the oneness of God.
For this, epoch-making men were needed and their selection could be done only under the most trying circumstances: this purpose was achieved by sending the companions of the Prophet of God into the war waged by his opponents.
Paradise is the most familiar and best known concept for a believer. He not only hears about it from the Prophet, but also, by means of his developed inner knowledge (ma‘rifah), gains an intuitive understanding of it.
It is still this deep understanding of the unseen, hidden Paradise that inspires and encourages man to seek it, regardless of the sacrifices to be made.
Had it not been so, nobody would have sacrificed today’s world in the hopes of entering tomorrow’s Paradise.
