Ah, Madonna — a washed-up has-been of pop music, desperate to stay in the news and willing to say almost anything to do so. The 58-year-old “Material Girl” is no longer “Like a Virgin” to the Secret Service after comments she made regarding the Trump White House during the recent Women’s March on Washington, D.C. following the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Madonna’s profanity-filled speech to a receptive crowd at the women’s gathering meant largely nothing, despite the singer swearing on live broadcasts of C-SPAN, MSNBC and CNN, “To our detractors that insist that this march will never add up to anything, f*** you! F*** You!”
Trying to get the crowd going, she rhetorically asked, “Are you ready to shake up the world? Welcome to the revolution of love, to the rebellion, to our refusal as women to accept this new age of tyranny where not just women are in danger, but all regionalized people. Where being uniquely different right now might truly be considered a crime… It took this horrific moment of darkness to wake us the f*** up.”
She confessed, “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but I know that this won’t change anything.”
It’s the latter comment in particular that drew the attention of the Secret Service, who are charged with investigating and blocking any and all threats to the president and vice president. A spokesman for the agency said that an investigation would indeed be opened into the singer’s remarks.
On Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” former Republican presidential candidate and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that Madonna should be held accountable for her remarks. “She’s parallel to the young fascists who ran around town breaking windows, all of whom should be given the maximum sentence. What you have is an emerging left-wing fascism; she’s part of it. And I think we have to be prepared to protect ourselves. Frankly, the truth is, she ought to be arrested for saying she’s thought of blowing up the White House.”
The singer later issued a statement to “clarify” her remarks, saying the quote was taken “wildly out of context… Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won’t change anything. We cannot fall into despair… I am not a violent person; I do not promote violence, and its important people hear and understand my speech in its entirety.”
But Madonna has a long history of controversial actions and making provocative statements. Just recently, leading up to the march, the singer put an image on Instagram that purportedly showed a patch of her pubic hair cut into the Nike “swoosh” logo along with the running shoe company’s famous tagline and the message “Just Do It! @nakid_magazine 1 Million Women’s March! Be There! Washington, D.C. Jan. 21.”
Looking back, it was less than a year ago that the saucy singer wore a revealing outfit exposing her bare behind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Ball in New York as a “political statement.” Madonna said at the time that “[We] are still in the dark ages. The fact that people actually believe a woman is not allowed to express her sexuality and be adventurous past a certain age is proof that we still live in an ageist and sexist society. I have never thought in a limited way, and I’m not going to start now. We cannot effect change unless we are willing to take risks by being fearless and by taking the road less traveled. That’s how we change history.”
Whether exposing one’s bottom at one of the premier cultural institutions in the world was going to change history is debatable. But Madonna was determined to be seen as a role model for young women, saying, “I’m not afraid to pave the way for all the girls behind me! …I remain unapologetic and a rebel in this life and all the others. Join my fight for gender equality!”
The politically incorrect star took to Twitter in the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Orlando last year, posting a photo of two men open-mouth kissing and writing, “Love is love. Stop hate crimes. Any form of terrorism is a form of hate!” A few hours later she posted a picture of herself French-kissing Britney Spears at the MTV Music Video Awards in 2003.
Shortly thereafter, outraged users lashed out at her, tweeting messages such as “Are you serious right now? This isn’t about you and your fake-a** kiss for publicity; I would think you’d know better.”
Another wrote, “@Madonna Really? 50 people died, and you want to make this about you?” and still another blasted the singer for trying “to capitalize on the LGBTQA community with ‘bisexuality, I kissed a girl for momentary gain’ Katy Perry-bullsh**. Over it.”
A number of followers pointed out the singer’s advancing age, with one tweeting, “Somebody call Shady Pines! Nana is off her meds!” and another dissing, “@Madonna let’s hit that ‘log out’ button now, Mom.”
Later in the year, Madonna held an impromptu performance on behalf of the Democratic candidate in New York’s Washington Square Park. Writing again on Instagram, Madonna insisted that if Donald Trump won the election, “we are all f***ed… We do not want a man who hates people of color and women and is anti-Semitic to run this country. We do NOT WANT a WALL built around the U.S. paid for with our hard-earned money!!! All politicians lie. ALL!! Even our most beloved and esteemed. Can we please get off the email scenario and focus on the bigger picture??!” She then posted a self-made graphic with the message, “Vote Hillary, b*tches.”
In one of her last pre-election pleas, the performer told a shocked crowd prior to her performance at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden that “If you vote for Hillary Clinton, I will give you a b***job. OK? I’m really good. I’m not a douche, and I’m not a tool. I take my time, I have a lot of eye contact, and I do swallow.”
But the singer’s racy promises fell apart as reporter Gersh Kuntzman from the New York Daily News attempted to collect on her pledge by visiting the diva at her Upper West Side residence; he was promptly turned away by her doorman.
Why Madonna’s support for Clinton was so determined and so vehement may be a mystery to some of her fans. But in 2007, The Washington Post reported there could be a deeper reason for the hardcore devotion; apparently, the Material Girl and Clinton are tenth-generation cousins, according to Washington genealogist William Reitwiesner. Surprisingly, additionally scattered around the family tree are Angelina Jolie and the wife of Britain’s Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
When you’re that close to the Democratic candidate for president, her loss likely hurts all the more. At a charity fundraiser in December, Madonna confessed onstage that Trump’s election win “makes me feel ashamed — ashamed to be an American, ashamed to be a human being, really.”
In a rambling interview later in the month, Madonna said that Trump’s win made her feel like “someone died… It felt like a combination of the heartbreak and betrayal you feel when someone you love more than anything leaves you, and also a death; I feel that way every morning; I wake up and say, ‘Oh wait, Donald Trump is still the president,’ and it wasn’t a bad dream that I had.”
The singer had angry words for some females, declaring, “It feels like women betrayed us. The percentage of women who voted for Trump was insanely high… Women hate women. Women’s nature is not to support other women. It’s really sad.”
She blamed “some sort of [female] tribal inability to accept that one of their kind could lead a nation… Other people just didn’t bother to vote because they didn’t like either candidate, or they didn’t think Trump had a chance in the world. They took their hands off the wheel and then the car crashed.”
She added that since the election, she’d felt “devastated, surprised, in shock… I haven’t really had a good night’s sleep since [Trump] has been elected. We’re f***ed.”
The singer confessed that she had actually met Trump 20 years earlier at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “He’s a very friendly guy, charismatic in that boastful, macho, alpha-male way,” she said of Trump.
“I found his political incorrectness amusing. Of course, I didn’t know he was going to be running for president 20 years later… I just can’t put him and Barack Obama in the same sentence, same room, same job description. [The U.S. is] the laughing stock of the universe right now. We can no longer criticize other governments, other leaders. I’m hanging my head in shame.”
