Any pickleball players out there in the CB readership? There was a brief stretch of time when my mother was hucking me gently suggesting I should try it. The progression went something like “Do you know what pickleball is? I think you would enjoy playing. It requires no athletic ability!” To be honest, I wasn’t even offended. I felt seen. Spoiler alert: I haven’t taken up this ping pong-tennis hybrid sport yet. Actress Michelle Pfeiffer has, and took to Instagram last week to show off the impressive black eye she got for her efforts.
Michelle Pfeiffer is poking fun at her minor pickleball injury.
On Friday, the Golden Globe winner, 65, posted a series of photos on Instagram revealing that she got a black eye while playing the trendy sport. She included a close-up shot of her bruised eye as well as a photo holding an ice pack on her face immediately after the accident.
“WARNING ⚠️ Pickleball-Stay out of the Kitchen!! 😫 Thank you, Less! 🤣,” she captioned the photos. Pfeiffer later added that it’s “nothing serious. Thank God!”
Fans of the actress still flocked to the comments section to send her well wishes, including some messages from her famous friends.
Oh dear!! Eye 👁️ am wishing you a speedy recovery. ❤️🩹” Selma Blair wrote while Julianne Moore quipped, “That’s why I don’t play.”
Sister Dedee Pfeiffer also pointed out in the comments, “But she kept on playing… 💪💪💪😈”
“That’s right!!” the Scarface star added.
Pfeiffer also teased her makeup artist under the post, telling her “You’ve got your work cut out for you!”
Physical activities with balls are dangerous, kids! I don’t know if Julianne Moore really meant “That’s why I don’t play” as a quip, or was being flatly serious. Either way, I’m with her. As a New Yorker, I partake in competitive walking, sprinting to make the subway train, and a little weight lifting with the bags I carry. That’s treacherous enough for me already. Also, it seems like my mother lied to me, and pickleball does require some basic athletic ability! I bruise so easily, I’d probably be polka-dotted from ball hits if I tried playing. Michelle Pfeiffer, on the other hand, still looks smokin’ hot sans makeup plus a black eye.
Photos credit: Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Janet Mayer/startraksphoto.com
What I’m there for is the pickleball vs tennis battle. There is a move to get towns to tear down public tennis courts to build new pickleball courts. Absolutely lethal fights in local government over it. Accusations that there is some shadowy organization funding it all, not just local pickleball enthusiasts. Apparently the pickleball folks are relentless.
I have terrible knees with loose joints, so I go nowhere near any sport where you are hitting or catching a ball.
I was intrigued and wanted to learn to play for a while but the urge has passed for me. Especially when I read that ER visits and torn achilles injuries are way up since the pickleball craze started.
I’m aware of the battles over tennis courts but the park by my house seems to have avoided that. They are renovating both and one will be for tennis, one for pickleball. People seem okay with that. The real fights are over a proposed dog park, but that’s a whole other thread. 🙂
Can’t they just paint pickle ball lines on the existing courts? Granted, it’s been years since I’ve played, but I thought we just used the tennis courts and made the inside lines the markers. Or do I have traumatic amnesia from the horrors of gym class?
I play sometimes. It’s fun but you can get injured. People often wear goggles like squash players.
It’s fun. And addictive. I am too old to ever become any good at tennis anymore now but pickleball, yep. I used to think the pickleball people are crazy and cult-like and we have something here in Europe called Padel, which is almost the same thing. The good thing is that if you sucked at tennis but were good at pingpong you could still be good at pickleball. Needs only half the space of a tennis court. I miss Badminton but I think Pickleball will try world domination and will have a run of at least a good 5-10 years. The rest of my family plays tennis but that is way more expensive and therefor less inclusive.
Props to the people who take up new sports later in life but my body is just trying to get through the day.
She is stunningly beautiful still.
ugh, poor Michelle. I once had a black eye years ago and still get worse dark circles on that side. I’m sure her makeup artist is up to the challenge, but it may never entirely go away. (I got myself a little pot of kryolan and got on with my life, haha.)
it will be interesting to see whether pickleball has staying power. does anyone remember jai alai? it got pretty popular for a while back in the ’70s but has really faded, at least in the US.
She has amazing plastic surgery.