Madonna’s Satan Year

It seems fitting that this is the year Madonna turns sixty-six—her “Satan year,” as it were. After all, satanic panic is chic again, what with the Christian vote that Donald Trump is trying to “appeal to” in this election, along with the release of Longlegs, a movie where Nicolas Cage plays a Satan-worshipping serial killer, and Maxxxine, a movie that revives satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez as part of the narrative. Madonna herself has, needless to say, always been rooted in religion. Not just because of her name, but her expectedly Catholic upbringing. Accordingly, Madonna had an early sense of what it was to be terrified by the fire and brimstone rhetoric of the Bible.

And yet, that didn’t stop her from defiantly going against it. Starting from an early age, Madonna saw that rebellious acts—usually of a sexually provocative nature—were what got her the attention she was so sorely lacking in a household of seven other brothers and sisters, two of which arrived soon after Madonna’s father, Silvio, remarried in the wake of Madonna Sr.’s death in 1963.

With the influence of Catholicism so deeply ingrained within her, it’s no wonder that those themes of good versus evil crept so frequently into her work. And yes, many would come to view Madonna herself as “satanic.” As she put it during a 1996 interview promoting Evita, “Many people see Eva Perón as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

Over the years, Madonna would come to be known for doing many “devilish” things. Below are some of her most memorable brushes with being “damnable,” though there are many other instances in between, particularly depending on who you ask.

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1984, “Like A Virgin” performance at the First Annual MTV VMAs: This was the “devilish” controversy that launched Madonna’s reputation for scandal in the first place. Although she would later state that the whole thing was an accident and she was just trying to make the best of a bad situation after her shoe came off, the result was immortally iconic (even if the excuse sounds like more typical Madonna lore). As she stated in 2015 of that performance and its “shock value” on the public, “Everyone’s showing their butt now, but back then, nobody saw anyone’s butt.” So, for the first of many times, Madonna was left no choice but to light the way with her “heathenism.”  

1985, Playboy and Penthouse publishing Madonna’s pre-fame nude photos: Staying on-brand for what would become Madonna’s enduring sense of controversy, her next major one after the VMAs was a matter of “vintage” nude photos. Specifically, ones that were taken during her starving artist days in New York. It was Lee Friedlander and Martin H.M. Schreiber who sold one set of photos to Playboy, and Bill Stone who sold another to Penthouse. The expected result in Reagan’s “moral majority” America was outrage and consternation. That is, until Madonna did what no woman before her had tried: not caring. Indeed, just a year earlier, Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her Miss America crown (after becoming the first multiracial contestant to win) after her own pre-fame nude photos were sold to Penthouse. But rather than following suit by kowtowing to the moral outrage, Madonna hit back with two words, “So what?” And with that, shaming women was never quite as satisfying to the patriarchy that was quaking in their boots over this “Jezebel.”

1986, “Papa Don’t Preach” song/“Open Your Heart” video: Even after becoming a married woman (albeit to as much of a wild child [in his own way], Sean Penn), Madonna hardly fell into the role of “staid wife.” In 1986, she continued to evolve her political form of pop stardom by releasing her third album, True Blue. The instant classic of a record featured two singles that would serve as Madonna’s “antichrist” bread and butter: “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Open Your Heart.” With the former, the controversy stemmed more from the lyrics themselves than the accompanying video wherein Danny Aiello played Madonna’s Tony Ciccone-inspired father. With the latter, it was Madonna’s unbridled presentation of androgyny, homosexuality, “pedophilia” and general sexual perversity that had the proverbial censors up in arms (MTV even tried to suggest “edits,” as though they had never met Madonna before).

Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino (who Madonna would also turn to again for some scandal with 1990’s “Justify My Love” video), “Open Your Heart” remains one of M’s most famous career visuals, presenting her as a peep show star in a black bustier with gold tassels. Though the bustier has a conical bra, it was actually designed by Marlene Stewart, not Jean-Paul Gaultier, who would furnish Madonna’s cone bra era during the Blond Ambition Tour. And while some might think that’s what got the then thirteen-year-old boy in the video (played by Felix Howard) all “titillated,” the fact of the matter is that he simply wants to emulate Madonna, mimicking her dance moves and looking longingly at the photo of her outside the venue (topped off by a giant cutout of Tamara de Lempicka’s “Andromeda” painting). Indeed, the most controversial aspect of all about “Open Your Heart” is Madonna very clearly acknowledging that gay men are probably more Single White Female-prone than actual women.

1989, “Like A Prayer” music video and its timing with the Pepsi commercial: In a move that has continued to endure as one of her most controversial, Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” video was conveniently-timed, in terms of upping the “scandal quotient,” to be released around the exact same time as her Pepsi commercial premiered. Already paid five million dollars for the joy of her presence, Madonna naturally kept the cash after Pepsi decided to pull the plug as a result of her then too blasphemous “Like A Prayer” video, directed by Mary Lambert (who had also previously directed Madonna’s “Borderline,” “Like A Virgin,” “Material Girl” and “La Isla Bonita” videos). The most offending imagery to “Middle America” (a catch-all term for any part of the U.S. beyond San Francisco-New York-Los Angeles)? Madonna getting sexual with a Black saint in between dancing in front of some burning crosses. Oh yeah, and her stigmata hands indicating her “Christ-like” nature. It was all too much for Pepsi to deal with, as the company was threatened with boycotts and general moral outrage. So yes, long before Lil Nas X’s “Montero” video, there was Madonna causing a religious commotion with “Like A Prayer.”

1990, “Like A Virgin” performance during Blond Ambition Tour: Although some might have thought “Like A Virgin” could never be as risqué as it was during the 1984 VMAs, Madonna challenged herself on that front in 1990. While she could have bypassed the song altogether (already, by that point, rather sick of it) for the Blond Ambition Tour, Madonna chose to up the ante on the sexually charged nature of the song by performing it on a red velvet bed. “Boudoir antics” indeed. As if it weren’t enough to have Luis Camacho and Jose Gutierez making lurid gestures while standing on either side of her in their own special cone bras, Madonna offered the pièce de résistance of the performance by “simulating masturbation” at the very end of the raunchy rendition—just before her voice for the opening of “Like A Prayer” asks, “God?” As though to indicate that perhaps the divine really does exist in the form of orgasm. Police in Toronto didn’t seem to agree, famously threatening to arrest her if she went through with the performance as usual during her dates at the SkyDome. Madonna was undeterred, with her adamance about doing the show as usual being humorously documented in Truth or Dare. In the end, the police didn’t have the cojones (or a viable reason) to arrest the biggest star in the world.

1990, “Justify My Love” video: Continuing to test the limits of what boundaries she could push in the early 90s, Madonna’s next major scandal arrived thanks to yet another video collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Mondino: “Justify My Love.” In 2013, Madonna would say that it was her favorite video to make, and not without good reason. After all, what could be more fun than renting out the entire top floor of a posh Parisian hotel and being told there are “no rules,” for the cast of characters in the video to do whatever and act however they wanted? Usually, in a sexy manner.

Although Madonna had toed the line between socially acceptable and too taboo before, “Justify My Love” ended up marking the first time that MTV put a kibosh on her freedom of expression, insisting the video was too racy to be aired. Some would go on to say that Madonna got the video to be banned by design, so that it would cause more controversy, therefore more publicity. Plus, it prompted her to sell it as a video single, after which it became the first short-form video to go multiplatinum in the U.S. After all, people needed to see what was so scandalous about the content, and how else were they going to if MTV wasn’t airing it?

Madonna even found time to make a political commentary on Nightline about the whole thing, schooling Forrest Sawyer on the hypocrisy of America and how it would rather let children and teenagers watch gratuitous violence than be exposed to anything sexual. Least of all anything “too” sexually taboo (which, at that time, included bisexuality and sadomasochism) or anything where a woman is not being exploited or violated within a sexual scenario.

1990, “The Beast Within” B-side: As though to drive home the point that she has no problem being associated with “hellfire” and that religion did a number on her thinking as a child, Madonna opted to read select passages from the Book of Revelation as the lyrics for a remixed version of “Justify My Love” called “The Beast Within.” Among her “eternal damnation” selections for the lyrics are, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer/Behold the devil is about to throw you into prison” and “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted/As for the murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolators/And all liars/Their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone/And he said to me/He said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy’/For the time is near/Let the evildoers still do evil/And the filthy still be filthy.” According to many people throughout Madonna’s career, she falls into the latter category.

And yet, she is arguably among the most well-read when it comes to the Bible, telling her musical director, Stuart Price, in 2005’s I’m Going To Tell You A Secret, “There is some poetry in the New Testament.” She also explains, via voiceover, “To me, ‘the beast’ is the modern world that we live in, the material world, the physical world, the world of illusion that we think is real. We live for it, we’re enslaved by it and it will ultimately be our undoing,” then saying aloud to Price, “I like the juxtaposition of telling people they’re all gonna go to hell if they don’t, um, turn away from their wicked behavior” (for “The Beast Within” would serve as the opening song to the Re-Invention Tour, also showing up during The Girlie Show and The Celebration Tour in an interlude format). Again, it’s ironic when taking into account that so many of M’s detractors have felt she’s the one who needs to turn away from her wicked behavior.

1992-1993, Erotica/Sex/Body of Evidence/The Girlie Show: It was also Forrest Sawyer who said, during the intro to the abovementioned Nightline episode, “It’s become virtually a seasonal affair. The weather changes, and there is a new Madonna controversy.” In 1992, Madonna proved that in spades by unleashing a quartet of projects that, when absorbed together by the public, reinforced, once and for all, her reputation as a “satanic presence” in America. It began with releasing Erotica and Sex back-to-back, with the former, er, coming out on October 20, 1992 (back when albums were still released on Tuesdays), and the latter on October 21, 1992. The two were thusly received as “twin” projects. Viewed as “more of the same” from Madonna, whose only goal, in the public’s mind, was to shock and appall rather than saying something that was actually meaningful. But of course her intent was always to hold up a mirror the U.S. and its false declarations about being the place for freedom of speech and open dialogue. Though at least it never really claimed to be sexually liberated.

The music of Erotica was quickly lost in the scantily clad shuffle of the Sex book, which sold 500,000 copies in its first week and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. As Madonna would later remark of the book, “[It] was sort of the pinnacle of me challenging people and saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna be sexually provocative and I’m gonna be ironic and I’m gonna prove that I can get everybody’s attention and that everybody’s gonna be interested in it and still be freaked out by it.’” That they were, especially the conservatives of American government that were still enjoying power thanks to the Bush administration (ultimately just a continuation of the Reagan one).

While others might have “toned it down” in response to the backlash, Madonna kept releasing content of a highly sexual nature, including the Uli Edel-directed Body of Evidence, released on January 15, 1993. Indeed, it was no coincidence that Body of Evidence should be released during such a “dead” month for new movies. But even that didn’t help it win at the box office, with its worldwide gross being $38 million to the $30 million budget it cost to make the movie in the first place. Madonna’s performance was, quelle surprise, the most panned thing about BoE.

And yet, because you can’t keep a good woman down (no matter how much everyone insists she’s Satan), Madonna kept on truckin’ in 1993, taking her sex act on the road with The Girlie Show. However, in a sign of just how fraught her relationship with the United States was at the time, Madonna opted to only perform tour dates in New York, Philadelphia and Auburn Hills (just outside of Detroit, proving Madonna’s ongoing commitment to her Michigan roots). Though she claimed the general bypassing of the U.S. was because “I am going to the places where I have the most enemies,” there could be no denying that the majority of those “enemies” were in the “Land of the Free.”

1994, saying “fuck” fourteen times on the Late Show with David Letterman: The Girlie Show’s final date was on December 19, 1993 in Tokyo. This meant that, on March 31, 1994, Madonna didn’t exactly have any new projects to promote when she went on The Tonight Show with Davide Letterman. Other than, of course, her “demonic agenda.” Infecting the minds of Americans with her “filth,” etc. And, in this instance, it was her filthy mouth that did viewers in. Though, to be fair, Madonna is the woman who once said, “I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, ‘Hi, how are you?’ I hate words that don’t have any reason or meaning.” “Fuck,” in Madonna’s mind, is not one of those words, having already told audiences during the Blond Ambition Tour, “Fuck is not a bad word, fuck is a good word. Fuck is the reason I am here…fuck is the reason you are here.” For Letterman and the rest of America that night in 1994, fuck also became the reason they were there.

In the wake of the “fuck scandal,” Madonna would send Dave a letter in mid-April cheekily saying, “Happy Fucking Birthday Dave! glad you could get so much mileage out of the fucking show. Next time you need some fucking publicity, just give me a fucking call. love the anti-christ M. xx.” Ah, there’s that allusion to being demonic again, with Madonna knowing full well the public’s perception of her, particularly during this period in her career…

1996, playing Eva Perón in Evita: It was precisely because her image had become a “liability” by the mid-90s that Madonna, some might cynically say, “orchestrated” her next image shift. The one that would soon lead to her being rebranded as the “Ethereal Girl.” It started in 1994, with the release of Bedtime Stories, an R&B-infused record with plenty of slow jams including the beloved final track, “Take A Bow.” While Madonna might have “softened” her image with Bedtime Stories and a follow-up compilation of ballads called Something to Remember in 1995, not everyone was sold on her continuing to “soften” that image through the persona of Eva Perón. Not just because many people (specifically, Argentinians) don’t exactly have “pleasant” thoughts about Perón, but because, as Madonna put it, “Many people see [her] as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

As such, Madonna had been petitioning director Alan Parker for the role since at least the “Take A Bow” video (helmed by Michael Haussman), which amounted to an audition tape for the part Madonna said she had been dreaming of playing since the late 80s, when she first secured meetings with Robert Stigwood (the original producer of the Broadway musical), Oliver Stone (then signed on to direct the film version) and Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. Alas, Madonna appeared to rub Stone the wrong way, with the director recalling, “At the time she hadn’t done many movies, and she was insisting on script approval. I said, ‘Madonna, you can’t have script approval.’ And she wanted to rewrite Andrew Lloyd Webber! Here she was making these demands, and I said, ‘Look, there’s no point in our meeting anymore; it’s not going to work.’” Needless to say, Madonna had the last laugh. Even though many Argentinians were still less than thrilled about Madonna playing their precious Evita, with one former secretary of Evita’s reportedly saying, “We want Madonna dead or alive. If she does not leave I will kill her.” But Madonna doesn’t “leave,” least of all because she’s been given a death threat.

2001, “What It Feels Like For A Girl” video: With the advent of the twenty-first century, Madonna decided to try her hand at marriage again. And Guy Ritchie was quick to mold Madonna in his laddish image after the two were married in December of 2000. It took little time for the two to collaborate on M’s video for “What It Feels Like For A Girl” in 2001. Something of an ironic song choice when taking into account the misogynistic nature of Ritchie’s work. To be sure, there’s no denying a fair amount of gay and female fans alike might have felt betrayed by Madonna’s decision to marry someone who so overtly represented everything she didn’t. Including ageism, “light-heartedly” represented in “What It Feels Like For A Girl” as Madonna takes a joy ride with an elderly woman that she picks up from the “Ol Kuntz Guest Home.” While Ritchie might have meant “no harm” with such a phrase, it would become particularly poignant as the ageism lobbed against Madonna continued to augment as the 00s wore on. But that term was hardly what offended MTV enough to, yet again, ban Madonna. This time, for something she was entirely unaccustomed to being banned for: the portrayal of violence and abuse. Of course, it probably would have been totally acceptable if Madonna were a man engaging in these behaviors.

2003, “American Life” video/“Die Another Day” video: As has been noted repeatedly, the most shocking thing about the “American Life” video was Madonna’s decision, ultimately, to censor it. Although she had originally intended to go through with the “X-rated” version that shows George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein lookalikes at the end, the invasion of Iraq changed her mind. In one of the original versions, however, it shows Madonna throwing a grenade into a fashion show audience, with Bush catching it only to end up using it as a means to light his cigar. In another version (of which there are many), a Saddam lookalike lights the cigar for Bush. All of which is to say that these two men are ultimately in one big boys’ club together. A club that happens to run the world on violence and destruction.

The theme of torture was on-brand for the early aughts, what with Guantánamo Bay opening in January of 2002. Which also happened to be the year that Madonna released the video for “Die Another Day,” a visual that might have been “controversy-free” were it not for Madonna’s rampant use of Hebrew words and wrapping a tefillin around her arm at the end of the video. The tefillin being, in Orthodox Jewish communities, solely reserved for men—and certainly not designed to be paraded in relation to a pop song. But leave it to Madonna to subvert religious paraphernalia whenever and wherever possible…

2003, kissing Britney and Christina (but mainly Britney) at the VMAs: For some, the “queerbaiting shtick” of Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during the 2003 VMAs hasn’t necessarily stood the test of time. But even if one feels that it was all done solely for “shock value” (rather than a symbolic “passing the baton,” as Madonna suggested at the time), it can’t be denied that it was a bold move to test out on the mainstream during a period when conservatism ruled over America yet again (courtesy of one, George W. Bush and his puppeteer, Dick Cheney). And a lesbianic kiss, in 2003, was just the ticket to momentarily shock the U.S. out of its puritanical coma.

2004, Re-Invention Tour: Just because Madonna had become “the missus,” it didn’t mean she was prone to “tame” her act, particularly since it became apparent fairly early on in the marriage that Madonna couldn’t (and wouldn’t) stop being an artist just to appease Ritchie’s retro ideals of what a wife “ought to be.” Nor was she wont to tamp down her rampant allusions to Kabbalah and religion in general throughout the tour, making political statements that were often uncomfortable for those concertgoers who foolishly expected her to “shut up and play the hits.” But even during what constituted her first “greatest hits” tour, Madonna would never do that.

2009, Michael Jackson tribute speech at the VMAs: It’s not often that someone can be controversial for their projection of narcissism, but Madonna managed to achieve that during the 2009 VMAs, when she was tasked with giving a tribute speech to her contemporary, Michael Jackson. Although, in the past, Jackson had often expressed his disdain for Madonna, it didn’t stop her from blithely making comparisons between her and the fellow pop royal, opening the speech with, “Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. so was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I.” Of course, that brief “running off course” from the subject at hand would pale in comparison to her eventual Aretha “tribute” speech…

2012, The MDNA Tour: Letting it all hang out during her post-divorce-from-Ritchie era, Madonna went balls to the wall with her controversy-courting during The MDNA Tour. From placing a swastika over Marine Le Pen’s head during the “Nobody Knows Me” interlude to toting firearms during “Gang Bang” (even more controversial when she still performed with the guns after the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting) to “promoting homosexual propaganda” during her Russian concerts, every step of the way during The MDNA Tour was beset with the old line about Madonna being a devil woman.

2014-15, calling the Rebel Heart leak “terrorism,” Rebel Heart social media snafus: Rebel Heart, Madonna’s thirteenth studio album, was plagued with difficulties from the start. For, in addition to working with more producers than she ever had before (even during Bedtime Stories), early demos of the songs were illegally hacked and leaked online, forcing Madonna to release six songs way ahead of schedule, in addition to bumping up the album’s release date before she was ready. As a result, the album’s concept was altered in a way that prevented Madonna from more fully representing the duality of the “rebel” side and the “heart” side. So yes, she was in a bit of a fragile state when she likened the hack to “terrorism,” particularly at a time when the Sydney hostage crisis and Peshawar school massacre had just occurred. Madonna would also further ruffle feathers by likening the violation to “rape,” a word that fewer and fewer were comfortable with throwing around lightly. Indeed, one woman who didn’t let use of that word go was Vanessa Grigoriadis, who, in her “Madonna at Sixty” profile, commented, “It didn’t feel right to explain that women these days were trying not to use that word metaphorically.” In response, Madonna clapped back, “[That article] makes me feel raped. And yes I’m allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of nineteen.”

Of course, worse than anything was Madonna’s “promo campaign” during the Rebel Heart rollout. The one that found her using images of Black men that included Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley with the same black wires wrapped around their face as the ones featured on Madonna’s album cover. Not only did people feel it was in “poor taste” for Madonna to use such freedom fighting icons as a means to promote her music, but they also pointed out the fact that putting Black men in what amounted to chains was really not a good look for a white woman.

2017, announcing that she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House”: This remains one of Madonna’s riskier moves in the past ten years, perhaps underestimating just how much the America she came of age in is no longer one that values or upholds the tenets of so-called free speech at all. To boot, in the time since Madonna rose to stardom, the world’s sense of humor has only become more nonexistent as a result of how literally everyone takes things. Madonna tried to break it down for those offended by saying, “I spoke in metaphor and I shared two ways of looking at things—one was to be hopeful, and one was to feel anger and outrage, which I have personally felt.” Alas, you can’t explain language to people who bastardize it as much as the 1984 government.

2018, Aretha Franklin tribute speech at the VMAs: Falling prey to a more rambling speech than the one she gave after Michael Jackson’s death, Madonna made matters worse for herself at the 2018 VMAs by showing up in highly appropriative garb traditionally worn by Amazigh women. Having freshly stepped off the plane after her sixtieth birthday party in Morocco, Madonna didn’t seem to remember what planet she had reentered when she proceeded to give a long-winded “early days in New York” story before finally tying it back to Aretha with one sentence at the end of the speech. The Aretha fans were not happy.

2019, shrimping Maluma in the “Medellín” video: After Madonna took a four-year pause from making another studio album (usually the longest she would ever go, up until now, with five years already passing between 2024 and the release of Madame X), it was the music and mood of Lisbon that inspired her next one. Madame X would become, arguably, Madonna’s most eclectic album to date, with a wide range of sounds, musicians, voices and instrument styles permeating the record. One such example being Maluma’s presence on the album’s lead single, “Medellín.” Maluma ended up being approached about a collaboration at the 2018 VMAs (so, not a total loss for Madonna) and the two quickly struck up a rapport that would last well after finishing their collaboration. Indeed, so “warm” were their feelings toward one another that Madonna even felt obliged to suck Maluma’s toe during their “bed scene” together in the video. After all, this is the woman who famously promoted shrimping on the back cover of her Erotica album.  

2020, quarantine diaries and hydroxychloroquine post: Among the least sexual of her controversies, there was a period throughout 2020 where Madonna would provide little “snapshots” into her quarantined existence, billing these Instagram videos as her “quarantine diaries.” While some could appreciate the campiness of the content and production, others took offense to Madonna saying things like, “Covid is the great equalizer.” This said from a posh bathtub filled with rose petals.

To make matters worse, in terms of Madonna coming across as tone deaf and uninformed about Covid, she posted a highly controversial video that promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine as means of curing coronavirus. In other words, she was touting the same remedy as Donald Trump. It definitely wasn’t her finest hour vis-à-vis types of controversy.

2021, VMAs introduction: Not one to let the next generation forget that she will forever remain the queen of “baring it all” at any age, Madonna showed up to the VMAs in 2021 to give a nod to the fortieth anniversary of the network, telling the audience, “And they said we wouldn’t last. But we’re still here, motherfuckers” before turning around to flash her ass for the camera, 2015 Grammys-style. As usual, Madonna’s exposure of her “illicit” body part got the tongue-wagging reaction she wanted.

2023, introducing Sam Smith and Kim Petras at the Grammys: Less desirable for Madonna on the tongue-wagging reaction front was her appearance at the 2023 Grammys. Tapped to introduce Sam Smith and Kim Petras performing “Unholy” (which she would also incorporate into the opening of “Like A Prayer” during The Celebration Tour), few were focused on the words Madonna was actually saying as much as they were her face. Of course, it wasn’t the first time comments had been made about her plastic surgery-happy visage, but this backlash over her appearance was among the most merciless to date. So tireless was the commentary about Madonna being “unrecognizable” that it prompted a barrage of think pieces on the subject, including “Madonna’s Face and the Myth of Aging Gracefully.” But if “graceful” means “covering it up” and surrendering to “acting your age,” then, obviously, it’s not for Madonna.

2024, “daring” to still bare her skin/be sexual during The Celebration Tour: Speaking of not covering it up, while some were likely hoping that Madonna would “stay down” once she was felled by a bacterial infection in the summer of 2023, she got right back up again to parade her body for The Celebration Tour. Unlike the Re-Invention Tour, this was her first all-out, fully admitted greatest hits tour, celebrating a forty-year career that few others, least of all any female pop stars, have rivaled. Continuing to explore her old favorite themes, religion, sexuality and double standards for women, Madonna also incorporated many nostalgic touches into the show, reflecting on her past in a way she never had before, and certainly not during a tour. Of course, for those who might believe that it was a sign of Madonna “slowing down” or “accepting her fate with the reaper,” they have another thing coming. For this “devil woman” isn’t liable to ever stop.

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Madonna once remarked, “We live in a very puritanical country.” Something she’s seen time and time again in her decade-spanning career. And while it might have seemed that such puritanism was at its peak in the Reagan 80s, it’s no secret that the United States, at its core, has not fundamentally changed with regard to its attitudes about sex and sexually empowered women. As a result, it’s no wonder that Madonna has been branded as “the devil” repeatedly throughout her various “eras.” But at least, by turning sixty-six, she can finally give conservatives “the mark of the beast” to match that accusation.