Let bygones be bygones? Madonna took to social media on Friday, Aug. 14, to share the ultimate flashback Friday photo with her fans: a black-and-white picture of herself with ex-husband Sean Penn.
“It’s almost our birthdays!” she captioned the sultry snapshot, which shows Penn kissing the singer on the cheek while she tilts her head backward. The photo was taken in 1988 at a benefit in Los Angeles. “2 Leo’s love #rebelhearts.”
Penn, 54, and Madonna, 56, will celebrate their birthdays on Aug. 17 and 16, respectively.
Rebel Heart is the name of Madonna’s latest album, which she released this past March.
The famously fiery duo, who were married from 1985 to 1989, have remained friends since their divorce, and a source once told Us Weekly that the “Cherish” singer’s friends considered Penn to be “the love of her life.”
The pair — who were nicknamed “the Poison Penns” for the very public and very frequent spats throughout their marriage — met on the set of Madonna’s music video for “Material Girl” back in 1985. They tied the knot in a top-secret ceremony just a few months later.
Penn opened up about the disintegration of their marriage in Esquire UK’s March cover story.
“Initially, in a divorce, you kick and bite about the other person,” he told the magazine. “But finally you’re looking at your failures to that person, to a marriage, to a friendship, to yourself during that time as well. Because no matter what the other person was or wasn’t, for better and for worse, it really has so little to do with the growth you need to find better circumstances. Almost exclusively it has to do with your own stuff.”
The couple called off their marriage in 1989, and Penn married actress Robin Wright in 1996 and divorced in 2010. The actor and Charlize Theron called off their engagement this past June after dating for about a year and a half.
Madonna remarried as well — she wed director Guy Ritchie in 2000, but divorced in 2008.
