Christie Brinkley found herself face-to-face with her younger self when archival modeling footage appeared beside a new close-up interview. Now 72, the longtime model smiled as she revisited a career stretching back nearly five decades, including the Black Velvet Whisky campaign that helped establish her as one of the era’s most recognizable faces. Her blond hair was loosely pinned up, with soft strands around her face, while dark eye makeup and glossy lipstick completed the look. But once the side-by-side images reached social media, the conversation quickly shifted from nostalgia to Brinkley’s appearance today. Some viewers thought she looked dramatically different, while others argued that aging naturally changes everyone. The comparison soon became almost as talked about as the campaign itself.

The reaction was sharply divided. Some commenters focused on Brinkley’s lips, jaw and other facial features, with one writing that she “hardly looks like her,” while others defended her and praised how she has aged. One supporter simply observed, “We all age. She’s still so beautiful.” Yet Brinkley’s own attention was somewhere else entirely. During the interview with ET’s Emily Curl, she watched footage recorded when she was 29 and was asked what she would tell that younger woman. Her answer revealed that the biggest transformation she sees may have little to do with what viewers noticed on screen.

Brinkley said she would tell her younger self to relax, enjoy life and worry less about other people’s opinions—a striking admission from someone whose appearance became an enormous professional investment. She remembered considering herself “chubby” as a young model and preferring loose clothing despite the praise surrounding her. Her return to Black Velvet came after the company contacted her about continuing the familiar advertisements, an invitation she immediately accepted. She joked that preparing for shoots once took less time and that certain poses were easier when she was younger, but she viewed the new campaign as a celebration of staying active and continuing work she enjoys. Her unusually long career also challenges the industry’s old expectations: Brinkley recalled being warned early on that she would be finished by 30. No attorney, insurance policy, mortgage, estate plan or court decision could have guaranteed a career lasting this long; her real asset became longevity in an industry once notorious for giving women a remarkably short professional window.

That history makes the new images more than a simple then-and-now comparison. Brinkley also revisited her appearance in Billy Joel’s 1983 “Uptown Girl” video, a project whose popularity has lasted far longer than she expected, and reflected on how opportunities for models have changed. She believes the business has become more inclusive, with women from her generation returning to work, although she still considers age one of modeling’s final barriers. Nearly 50 years after entering an industry that supposedly came with an expiration date, Brinkley is again appearing in a campaign connected to her early fame. Social media may continue debating every visible change between the woman in those archival photographs and the woman speaking today, but Brinkley seems more interested in what those decades allowed her to learn. Her message is simple: careers—and people—do not necessarily expire when someone else’s timetable says they should.