The executive producer of Sunday's Billboard Music Awards is defending the decision to have Madonna pay homage to Prince, which has been met with some criticism online and sparked a Change.org petition.
"Listen, I think everybody is entitled to their opinion and everyone can have their own opinion, but I will say that we are honoured and could not be more excited for Madonna to be on the show and to pay tribute to someone that was her friend and her peer and her colleague," Mark Bracco said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I think it's going to be fantastic."
"It's going to be very, very intimate and very respectful, and I think it's something that is really going to pay tribute to Prince as the incredible, groundbreaking artist that he was and the influence that he had on music," he said.
"Honestly her team gave a call and inquired about what we might be thinking about and it led to many conversations about what would she want to do and how would we want to shape it creatively," he said. "And after everyone (got) comfortable with exactly what the direction was, we all collectively wanted to go into Madonna, that she would do this and she has been very, very involved in how this will all unfold creatively."
I read somewhere as long as the tribute is respectful, Madonna is the perfect choice. Some people took offense to Gaga's tribute to Bowie because she emulated his Ziggy Stardust look too much. So as long as Madonna doesn't dress up like Prince, it should be really good.
