Donna Mills Shares Humble Reaction to Going Viral at 85 After Hitting Back at Criticism About Her Makeup
Donna Mills Shares Humble Reaction to Going Viral at 85 After Hitting Back at Criticism About Her Makeup
Michelle LeeWed, May 6, 2026 at 9:22 PM UTC
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Donna Mills attending the 'A Murder Between Friends' screening on January 21, 2026
Credit: Paul Archuleta/Getty
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Donna Mills is getting used to going viral on the internet
In April, the Knots Landing star posted a video of her clapping back at a comment about her "too much" wearing makeup at 85, which received close to two million views
On May 5, Mills reacted to the newfound fame and shared why she decided to respond to the anonymous remark with humor
Donna Mills is an internet sensation.
In April, the 85-year-old television actress went viral for clapping back at a critic who wrote to her on Instagram about wearing "too much" makeup for her age.
”Sorry, not sorry. I like the way I look. This is my style, and style doesn't have an expiration date,” she said in an April 5 video in which she rocked a smokey eye look before transforming herself with a gray wig. She added in the caption, “I said what I said. #style #aging #makeup #clapback #armchairwarrior."
The video garnered over 1 million views and over 100,000 likes.
This month, she took to Instagram again with a reaction to her admirable response going viral on social media. Sharing a photo of a TV Insider article about her empowering clip, Mills wrote, "If you told me at 85 I'd be going viral on social media, I wouldn't have believed you…but here we are."
"I've spent a lifetime speaking up and speaking out, and I've always believed it lands best with a wink, not a jab. I'm so glad this moment found its audience exactly as intended," she added in the May 5 post alongside the hashtags of "Clapback Queen" and "Aging with Attitude."
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Being fabulous has no age limit for the star, who isfamously known for doing own makeup on Knots Landing. Mills starred as Abby Cunningham, a Los Angeles divorcée living among four couples, for nine seasons from 1980 to 1989.
Her character's signature makeup look featured a cool-toned smokey eye that enhanced her eyelids and made her blue eyes pop, as well as a contoured and blushed complexion. And let's not forget her feathered blow-out.
(Left) Donna Mills on 'Knots Landing'; (Right) Donna Mills at the 2024 Los Angeles Ballet Gala
Credit: CBS via Getty; Unique Nicole/Getty
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The look became so popular that fans demanded Mills share a tutorial, and that's exactly what she did.
"People kept writing to me. At that time, you couldn't text or do any of that stuff," Mills said during the Southfork Experience: Knots Landing Panel event in August 2025. "But they were writing to me and saying, 'Tell me how you do your eye makeup. I how you do your eye makeup and everything.' "
Mills further explained that the video was eventually a project she paid for on her "own dime" and that it involved a "whole production crew" that shot at her home. How it landed in the hands of the biggest film studios in Hollywood, she revealed, "I thought, I can't distribute it. I don't have the wherewithal to do that, so I took it to Universal and they bought it and they distributed it and it went platinum."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
