Let’s talk about the 2025 Grammy Red Carpet.
A red carpet is traditionally a circus of attention. This year’s red carpet more so; it was about power, control and the performance of womanhood.
Kanye West arrived with his wife, Bianca Censori, and, as expected, he made sure the headlines weren’t about her talent or artistry. She stepped onto the red carpet wrapped in a fur coat, but that wasn’t the story.
No.
They were about how, at his command, she dropped the coat, revealing a sheer slip that left her nearly naked under the spotlight. And he? He stood there, fully clothed, fully in control, while Bianca was put on display.
This wasn’t fashion. This was theatre. A calculated power move designed to reinforce an old, exhausting narrative: The male genius and his silent, sculpted muse.
You’ve seen it before.
The woman as canvas. The woman as ornament. The woman as a reflection of male power and desire. The ‘muse’ in her most passive, palatable form:
objectified, curated, displayed.
But what happens when you take back the damn brush, write your own legend and refuse to be a prop in some man’s power trip?
What happens when you stop waiting to be chosen and choose yourself; boldly, audaciously and without hesitation?
The Problem with Being ‘His’ Muse
Here’s the thing: when a woman is cast as a man’s muse, it lets him off the hook.
He doesn’t have to look within himself for inspiration, for creative struggle, for self-reflection because you are there, performing beauty, acting as the mirror for his genius. The muse allows the man to externalise his creative journey instead of facing his own depths, his own contradictions.
Instead of doing the real work of artistry, he projects it onto you. And when the muse is no longer useful? She is discarded, replaced, erased.
Let’s be clear: the role of ‘muse’ is a trap. A gilded cage wrapped in a fantasy that tells you that you are special if you are looked at, admired, desired. The male genius. The female inspiration. The artist and his subject. It’s the same old patriarchal fairy tale that places you in the frame but not behind the camera, on the pedestal but never holding the pen.
Being someone’s muse can feel intoxicating at first.
The gaze is on you, the attention electric. But that gaze? It’s about control.
The muse serves at the pleasure of the creator, subject to his whims, his aesthetics, his rules. And history has shown time and time again: when the muse no longer fits his vision, she is discarded, replaced, erased.
The Power of Being Your Own Muse
So what if you flipped the script? What if you refused to be the object of someone else’s project and, instead, centered yourself and your own creative life?
Being your own muse means rejecting passivity. It means choosing yourself first. It means stepping into the role of creator instead of decoration.
This isn’t about rejecting beauty, sensuality, or the desire to be seen. It’s about reclaiming your right to define yourself. To express on your own terms.
To take up space, unreservedly.
Imagine if all the energy you’ve spent trying to perfect your role as a muse; learning how to be desirable, how to please, how to be ‘the one’ was redirected into your own creative pursuits, your own ambitions, your own damn empire.
- What book would you write?
- What business would you build?
- What art would you make when you stop waiting to be someone else’s inspiration and start being the architect of your own future?
Reclaiming Your Narrative
History is full of women who were reduced to muses, but in reality, they were powerhouses in their own right:
Marianne Faithfull – More than Mick Jagger’s 1960s bohemian muse, she was a brilliant singer-songwriter whose career outlived the men who once defined her.
Lee Krasner – Constantly overshadowed by Jackson Pollock, but a powerhouse of Abstract Expressionism in her own right.
Dora Maar – Labeled as Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman,’ but she was a surrealist photographer and painter with a vision entirely her own.
Françoise Gilot – Picasso’s lover who did what so many muses couldn’t: she walked away. She built her own career as a painter and writer and dismantled the myth of male genius with her memoir Life with Picasso.
Alma Mahler – Told to stop composing because she was married to Gustav Mahler. She refused. Her music, suppressed for years, has since been rediscovered and celebrated.
Camille Claudel – A sculptor in her own right, but her contributions were swallowed by Rodin’s shadow. No more.
Suzanne Valadon – A model for Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, but more than that, an artist who captured women’s bodies through a female lens, unapologetically.
Fanny Mendelssohn – A composer whose music was credited to her brother, Felix Mendelssohn. Her brilliance stands on its own today.
Nancy Cunard – Heiress, poet, publisher, activist. She refused to be boxed in, instead using her privilege to challenge racism and fascism.
Gala Dalí – Not just Salvador Dalí’s muse. She was the strategist, the force behind his empire.
Yoko Ono – Dismissed as John Lennon’s muse for decades, but her art and activism were always revolutionary, always hers.
For Bianca Censori and every other woman who has been reduced to her proximity to a powerful man, the question is this:
Where does the performance end and autonomy begin?
Is this a choice, or is this a carefully orchestrated role? And more critically, what happens when you decide to step beyond being a muse and claim your own creative power?
When you center yourself as the muse of your own life, you intrinsically know how to find your way in the world.
Be your own muse. And then, create something unstoppable.
