Salma Hayek did not need a long birthday caption to explain how she feels about turning 60. Two photographs from the ocean and three words handled it.
The Frida star, who celebrated her milestone birthday on Sept. 2, shared the images five days later. Hayek went into the water without a swimsuit and captioned the Sept. 7 post simply, “60 and grateful,” according to Just Jared.
In one photograph, Hayek lies smiling in shallow water as the waves cover her body. The second catches her farther into the surf, turned away from the camera with her long wet hair falling down her back.
The photos arrived after Hayek had already celebrated the birthday with family and fit neatly with something she has been saying about aging for years, getting older has not made her particularly interested in hiding herself or stepping away from the parts of life she enjoys.
The Birthday Photos Showed Plenty Without Revealing Everything
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Hayek appears nude in the photographs, but neither image is explicit. The water covers her in the first, while her position and hair obscure her in the second. Her long dark hair also shows visible silver strands, another feature she has increasingly embraced in public appearances.
The comments quickly filled with familiar names. Elle Fanning wrote, “Beautiful ! Happy birthday!” Paris Hilton called her “gorgeous,” while Christina Hendricks focused on Hayek’s expression, writing, “You look so happy. Happy Birthday.”
Vanessa Hudgens called her a “Forever icon,” and Olivia Munn joked that “The bar has been set.” Other celebrities including Penélope Cruz, Anya Taylor-Joy, Naomi Watts, Michelle Pfeiffer and Priyanka Chopra were among those who liked the post.
The beach has become familiar territory for Hayek’s birthday posts. Page Six noted that she marked 59 in 2025 by posing in a red bikini aboard a yacht at sunset, raising a matching drink while celebrating another “trip around the sun.”
Her Actual 60th Birthday Included Cake and ‘La Mordida’
Her Sept. 2 birthday celebration included family, a floral slip dress and a much messier Mexican tradition. Video from the party showed Hayek taking part in la mordida, in which the birthday celebrant attempts to bite directly into the cake without using their hands while the people around them encourage the inevitable face-first collision.
Hayek’s 18-year-old daughter, Valentina, helped the tradition along by pushing her mother’s face toward the cake as the room laughed and cheered. Hayek shares Valentina with husband François-Henri Pinault.
The birthday also came shortly after another family milestone. In August, Hayek announced that she had become a grandmother for the first time after her stepson François Pinault Jr. and his wife, Lara Cosima Henckel von Donnersmarck, welcomed a son named François.
Hayek introduced the baby to her followers in an Aug. 16 video and noted that he represented the fourth living generation of the family to carry the name François. She added one small modification of her own: she plans to call her grandson “Panchito.”
At 58, Hayek Said She Never Expected a ‘Sports Illustrated’ Cover
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The confidence behind the 60th-birthday photos has a clear precedent. A year earlier, at 58, Hayek became one of the cover stars of the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, photographed by Ruven Afanador at Cuixmala in her native Mexico.
The achievement surprised Hayek herself. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, she recalled looking through the swimsuit issue when she was young without ever imagining that someone who looked like her would eventually appear on its cover.
“If somebody had told me I was gonna be in it at 58, I would have sent them to the madhouse,” she said, adding that the changing expectations surrounding age and beauty were part of what made the experience exciting.
Hayek went further than simply celebrating the cover. She said she felt fortunate to have lived through a period when women could see tangible changes in what was considered acceptable after 50 and argued that aging should not mean becoming less visible. “I don’t see why, after a certain age, we have to retract ourselves from embracing life to the fullest,” she said.