![2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals 2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/gettyimages-597606340.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
Kim Kardashian in minimal clothing, Kanye West in a T-shirt, and Ariana Grande wearing a high ponytail: All looks we expect to see on the MTV VMA white carpet. But what we didn’t expect? A star without a single visible stitch of makeup, which is exactly what Alicia Keys went with to present the award for best male video.
The star first made her makeup-free red carpet debut at the BET Awards, when her makeup artist Dotti Streeters shared a photo of the star, writing “#nomakeupmakeup”. And she took her bare-faced look one step further last week, when she appeared on a season preview of The Voice totally bare-faced.
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Before heading out to the carpet, the singer shared a photo of herself and husband Swizz Beatz, writing, “We ready… #VMAs.”
And according to the essay that she penned for Lenny earlier this summer, it’s a look that she plans on sticking to for a while. “I hope to God it’s a revolution,” Keys wrote about her makeup-free mantra. “‘Cause I don’t want to cover up anymore. Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.”
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