Madonna remains one of the best-selling pop stars of all time, with sales surpassing 300 million units worldwide, spanning 14 platinum-selling studio albums, some of the highest-grossing tours, and, of course, endless controversies. While one could argue that Madge’s unapologetic attitude is what has gotten her as far as she’s come, some would say that the Queen of Pop may have taken things a bit too far as of late.
Since the release of her fourteenth album Madame X, Madonna has found herself landing a lot of bad press for things she’s said on social media to the director of her “Like A Prayer” music video coming out and sharing a bizarre story on what inspired the Michigan native to include an African-American actor in one of the scenes.
On top of that, people have also taken issue with the fact that Madonna is once again dating a man much younger than her — 26-year-old dancer Ahlamalik Williams, and fans don’t seem to agree with their romance one bit. With all the controversies concerning Madge and her career, one has to wonder whether the 62-year-old may have taken things too far this time. Here’s the lowdown…
Madonna’s Latest Controversies
For Madonna to receive bad press isn’t anything new, but these recent reports are quite different from what we’re used to hearing about the mother of six.
In April 2021, for example, Mary Lambert came forward and admitted that working with Madonna on her music video for “Like A Prayer” in 1989 was rather interesting, to say the least.
Supposedly, the “Sorry” vocalist’s video was inspired by her desire to sleep with an African-American man at the altar.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lambert detailed the conversation with Madge and how she insisted that she wanted to “explore the correlation between sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy.”
Furthermore, Lambert expressed that the burning crosses fans see in the music video were to bring across “the idea of appropriation, that the Ku Klux Klan could take a cross, which is a holy symbol to a lot of people, and appropriate it in a way to instil fear and horror and promote race hatred. I wanted to turn that on its head.”
The video itself was plagued by a negative response from critics, who shamed the star for bringing religion into her “shenanigans” for the sake of shock value.
Madonna had signed a $5 million deal with Pepsi just weeks before the video was released, but the company ended up terminating the agreement following the outrage that came with Madge’s visual.
Still, the track managed to secure the No.1 spot for a whopping three weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100.
In May 2020, the “Hung Up” hitmaker came under fire yet again for her “insensitive” tribute to George Floyd, who died after former Minnesota cop Derek Chauvin had pinned him to the ground and pressed his knee on the victim’s neck for over seven minutes.
To mark her tribute to Floyd, however, Madonna posted an Instagram video of her son David Banda dancing to Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us,” which many deemed as being inappropriate.
"A bit insensitive as you're a person with a platform to voice their concern, you should be doing a lot more," one person wrote on Twitter after coming across the video. "Having your adopted black son dance ain't going to force change to happen."
Another echoed similar words, saying, "Good intentions but completely tone-deaf. Dancing away the racism of murderous cops won't actually do anything. But thanks for trying!"
Then, in March 2021, Madonna was accused of photoshopping her face onto a fan’s body without her consent before the star shared the post to her social media page.
TikTok user Amelia M. Goldie told BuzzFeed that she initially thought the photo was a joke, but after stumbling across the pic again on Madonna’s Instagram made her want to get in contact with the singer’s team about the copyright infringement.
She said, “I tried to reach out via Instagram to her team twice, to no response … I [would] definitely laugh and say I’m flattered, but of course that I wish I was credited!”
With reports claiming that Madonna is working on her fifteenth studio album, many are wondering whether Madge will still see the same support she had with her previous records considering she’s constantly in some sort of controversy or scandal.
It really begs the question of how much longer her loyal fans will keep excusing her behavior. While she may be unapologetic, it'll be interesting to see how her next project fares on the charts.