Tony Ward Flexes His Hustle
The iconic model, a Ritts muse, talks joining OnlyFans in his 60s, navigating his unorthodox beauty and that golden period when Madonna met her match
April 26, 2025
Tony Ward, one of the longest-employed male models in history at 61, is a changed man. But that’s nothing new — he has always embraced personal evolution, including the time he went from amiable bodybuilder to bookable bad boy.
“I got my first tattoo,” he says of his transformation in the late ’80s. “I started drinking, started smoking. I dressed like a hustler. I'd wear tight pants and tight shirts. My whole energy changed. I had this psychic change, and I'm like, ‘I need to do something else. I need to become something else.’”
He did. And that’s happening again.
For several years, his social media accounts telegraphed a fascination with conspiracy theories and — gulp — Trump, in stark contrast to the artful, hedonistic vibes of his past. Now two years sober, he wants people to know two things: he is doing fine, and he’s not fucking crazy.
In a long, warm, open-ended conversation, he volunteered that our mutual friend “gave me some forethought about maybe you had maybe some thoughts about my political bent.” Pausing, he added, “I don't have any anymore,” before laughing.
“I don't stand anywhere on anything, political-wise. And I think that's brought a lot of peace of mind to me, in a way.”
Tony has been a gay-household name for more than 30 years, though in his first incarnation, as a musclebound subject of Jim French for his Colt Studios, he was actually called “Franco Kier,” a name he didn’t choose for himself, and one he only found out about when he saw his naked body in a magazine tagged in that unfamiliar way.
Shortly after that, in the mid-’80s, he posed in unforgettable sessions for Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts, among many others. He attracted Madonna’s attention and was involved with her in 1990 and 1991, leaving in the wake of that hot-minute assocation indelible appearances in her music videos “Cherish” (1989) and “Justify My Love” (1990), as well as in her culture-shifting Sex book (1992) and her “Erotica” (1992) video, made up of B-roll from Steven Meisel’s sessions for the publication.
Since those days, he has never been far from the camera, in front of or behind it, and has never stopped making arresting images. When pursuing acting, he was even the star of Bruce La Bruce’s satirical, deliriously depraved Hustler White (1996), and his current passion is making clothing for his SixInTheFace, featuring “Hand Ravaged Clothing by Mr. Ward.”
“I make wearable art,” he explains. “I paint on clothing — I destroy clothing and then Frankenstein it back together.”
Interestingly, he also refers to his own looks — or rather quotes an observer, his ex-wife, on the subject — in Frankenstein terms, telling me, “She would say, ‘Your face is beautiful, but if you take it in parts, you're an ugly creature.’ Basically, if you look at my eyes, they're narrow, they're small, or whatever. My nose is crooked and funky and big. I have crooked teeth. I have small lips. If you take my parts apart, you're like, ‘Oh, yeah, that doesn't make up this whatever you become in a photograph.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I mean, true enough.’”
But the sum is greater than the parts, and makes up one of the greatest male models ever, one who continues to evolve — reinventing himself, one could even say — in an industry that is notoriously hung up on age.
Next up, he has launched an OnlyFans page, a project he hopes to approach as artistically as everything else he’s ever done, and with the trademark unashamed nudity and element of surprise that have marked his career from day one.
Keep reading for my conversation with Mr. Ward.