Flashing a swastika during a concert? Just a day in the life for Madonna, arguably the world’s most provocative pop star. In light of her inflammatory performance in Paris, we’ve gathered the top 10 most controversial Madonna moments.
1.- France’s far right National Front party is threatening to sue Madonna for showing a video that included one of their party’s leaders, Marine Le Pen, with a swastika superimposed on her face during a concert in Paris on Saturday (the offending symbol appears 34 sec. into the above clip).
The video montage, which played during the song “Nobody Knows Me,” shows several current and deposed world leaders. Madonna’s own face with a Hitler mustache follows that of Le Pen in the video. Madonna’s publicist, Barbara Charone, told CNN that the show “has been the same since it started in Tel Aviv” at the end of May. The National Front party warned that they would take legal action if Madonna played the video for the audience in Stade de France. “The images that were projected draw a terrible link between the party and an ideology we reject,” National Front vice president Florian Philippot said on Monday.
If that weren’t enough, the 53-year-old icon also flashed her nipple and buttocks at the Parisian audience. Nudity has been a regular feature of this particular world tour: She flashed a nipple on stage in Istanbul on June 7 and dropped her pants to show her buttocks in Rome.
But this is far from the first time the Material Girl has sparked a controversy over her material. “Madonna’s whole MO has been to be provocative and get a dialogue going,” Shirley Halperin, music editor for the Hollywood Reporter, told ABC News.
2.- A Pop Princess Lip Lock
Although Madonna wasn’t honored with an award at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, she still managed to steal the show. In the middle of a three-song set with younger pop stars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Madonna French-kissed Spears and lip-kissed Aguilera — both of whom were half the Material Girl’s age. Madonna was dressed as a groom, while Spears and Aguilera were both dressed as brides. Madonna’s six-year-old daughter was on stage, dressed as a flower girl. Tellingly, broadcasters immediately cut to Spears’s then-newly-ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake to gauge his reaction. Instead of the Aug. 28 show’s award winners, the next day’s (and really, the next week’s) press coverage centered on Madonna’s passionate lip lock.
3.- ‘Like a Prayer’ Sinks Pepsi Commercial Deal
Madonna’s relationship with Pepsi fizzled out in 1989 when she debuted her racy “Like a Prayer” music video just two days after singing it for a family-friendly soda commercial. While the soft drink ad featured a little girl drinking Pepsi, the pop star’s rendition featured burning crosses, a stigmata, and a romantic relationship between the pop icon and a black saint. Religious groups rebelled, and Pepsi — which had paid Madonna $5 million to do the commercial — pulled it so that people would not think it was related to the music video.
4.- ‘Like a Virgin’ Performance on MTV Video Music Awards
There was little virtue in Madonna’s performance of her hit single “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. At this point, the star’s career was just starting to take off. Two of her songs — “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” — had just breached the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100. But after her performance on MTV, where she trotted around in a risqué white wedding dress before dropping to the floor, writhing and rolling on her veil, Madonna became known as the reigning queen of pop — for better or worse.
5.- ‘American Life’ Music Video Pulled Amid Negative War Sentiments
With the first wounds of the U.S. invasion of Iraq still fresh, Madonna decided to grab the salt. Her 2003 video for “American Life” was set to debut just two weeks after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it was designed to be a scathing, hardline critique against war, materialism and all the societal ills that have eroded the American Dream. In the video, militant-looking models strut the catwalk at a fashion show amid cutaways of dropping bombs and devastated war victims. And the original cut of the video capped off with the Material Girl tossing a grenade into the audience, only to have it land in the hand of then-president George W. Bush – who uses the lit fuse to ignite Saddam Hussein’s cigar. Subtle.
The backlash was immediate and unforgiving. The video was dubbed “unpatriotic” and “insensitive” by critics, leading Madge to offer a statement clarifying her intent: “I am not Anti-Bush. I am not pro-Iraq. I am pro Peace,” she said. But with the political climate rapidly chilling Madonna ended up pulling the video from airwaves. In another statement, she said: “Out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces, who I support and pray for, I do not want to risk offending anyone.”
6.- ‘Justify My Love’ Video Banned from MTV
If YouTube had existed when “Justify My Love” was released in 1990, the extremely NSFW music video would have gone viral in minutes, if not seconds. But this was the 1990s, and after MTV deemed the sexually explicit video unfit for television, Madge released it as the first-ever single in VHS format (still available online, for any of you who still own a VCR). It hit stores at just under $10 a copy and later became the top-selling video single of all time. The five-minute video presents a platter of sexual fantasies and controversial themes: androgyny, sadomasochism, bisexuality, sex with multiple partners — the list goes on. When ABC’s Nightline interviewed Madonna about the controversy, she said she knew the video didn’t fit with MTV’s guidelines, but she thought the execs might bend the rules for her. She said the controversy wasn’t something she planned or foresaw, but something that “just happened.”
7.- The Four-Letter-Word-Laced Letterman Interview
Madonna made TV censors work overtime when she dropped an air raid’s load of f-bombs during an appearance on Late Show with David Letterman on March 31, 1994. The pop empress called Letterman a “sick f—” and used the f-word a total of 13 times. Prior to the interview, she mailed Letterman her underwear and asked that he smell them on the air. There was no holding Madge back, it seemed. But apparently there were limits to what Madonna was willing to do on the show: Letterman repeatedly asked her to kiss an eager audience member, but she refused. When Letterman mock-protested her obscenity, Madonna accused Letterman of “always f—ing with me on the show” and claimed that Letterman joked about her sex life in nearly episode.
8.- Blond Ambition World Tour
Leave it to Madonna to get her world tour denounced by the Pope. The Blond Ambition tour was the singer’s third, and arguably her most controversial, incorporating themes of passion and desire intertwined with religious elements. It was a lewd mix, but Madonna said they set out to “break every rule we can,” and they did. From the sexually explicit dancing to her infamous cone bra, the Blond Ambition tour encapsulated everything Madonna stood for in the 90s — which happened to be against the ideals of the Catholic Church. The Pope asked Christians not to attend the show and was responsible for the cancellation of one appearance in Rome. In the end, that didn’t really matter. Rolling Stone called Blond Ambition “the best tour of 1990.”
9.- Madonna Crucifies Herself
Her 2006 “Confessions Tour” once again crossed the Catholic Church the wrong way. During performances, she would crucify herself on stage while singing “Live to Tell.” Cardinal Ersilio Tonino, speaking for Pope Benedict XVI, condemned the performance: ”This time the limits have really been pushed too far. This concert is a blasphemous challenge to the faith and a profanation of the cross. She should be excommunicated.”
10.- Sex, the Coffee Table Book
Madonna’s 1992 book, simply titled Sex, is today one of the most sought-after out-of-print publications. The book of photos contains image after racy image, and, not surprisingly, sparked controversy as soon as it hit shelves. Sex includes appearances by actress Isabella Rossellini, model Naomi Campbell and rapper Vanilla Ice, who Madge had been dating at the time. (Yes, that happened.) Some critics saw Sex as a calculated publicity stunt to boost sales of Madonna’s upcoming album, Erotica. Either way, Sex wasn’t a flop: within a week of its release, 500,000 copies had sold in the U.S. alone.
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