If you have followed my articles over the past six months, you know that I have defended pop icon Madonna, to the ends of the earth – even when the internet has taken her to task for her questionable social commentaries.
From the time she slipped up with an attempt at black-folk camaraderie by sharing an IG post with the N-word, to the more recent post she shared, depicting her son David dancing to a Michael Jackson song in a George Floyd tribute – Madonna has unintentionally stepped on a few land mines and I have had her back.
My “ride or die” approach to all things Madonna directly connects to how much this pop music phenomenon turned historic cultural icon has influenced my life. She means something to me. Me and millions of other gay men came of age, found solace, safety, and validation under the rebellious wings of Madonna.
The Madonna I thought I knew was a badass girl from Detroit who ushered me from puberty to my teens with a high sense of self-worth, value, and “f**k you” to those who dared to reject me because of my sexuality. THAT Madonna went on to become the biggest pop icon the world had ever seen since Marilyn Monroe.
THAT Madonna fought for gay rights, denounced Reagan on the floors of Congress for not doing enough to combat AIDS. Madonna went on to join Liz Taylor, very early in all the groundbreaking AIDS awareness work of the AMFAR group. She would ultimately become the adoptive mother of four beautiful African children from remote villages, and she has invested millions in making sure the native communities of those children have the resources to thrive.
With all that history, you can imagine my confusion, dismay, anger, and hurt when I saw Madonna’s recent Twitter post praising Dr. Stella Immanuel. Seriously, Madonna, WTF?
Internationally, Immanuel is regarded as an advocate for hydroxychloroquine as a Coronavirus cure, even though health professionals in nearly every country have debunked that notion.
Still, that’s not the worst of it. Immanuel also uses her social media pages to claim that masks don’t help to reduce transmission of the Coronavirus, despite a global assessment to the contrary.
And wait. It gets even worse! Not only is Dr. Immanuel seemingly off-kilter from reality and an anti-masker, but she is also a rising Trump campaign darling who recently stated in the press that “alien DNA had been used in medicine,” and “demon sperm” causes disease. That’s right, “Alien DNA!” and “Demon Sperm!”
Madonna’s post, which seemed to support the cray-cray doctor, went viral shortly thereafter, and was quickly reprimanded by social media followers after she got removed by Twitter,
“We’ve removed this video for making false claims about cures and prevention methods for COVID-19,” Stephanie Otway, a Facebook company spokesperson, told Yahoo Entertainment. “People who reacted to, commented on, or shared this video, will see messages directing them to authoritative information about the virus.”
Yet, believe it or not, it gets STILL MUCH worse. According to Yahoo News,
“In a 2015 sermon, Dr. Immanuel declared that the Illuminati are promoting a plan hatched by ‘a witch’ to destroy the world using abortion, gay marriage, and children’s toys.
Since 2002 she has run Fire Power Ministries out of a strip mall near her clinic, and the church’s beliefs section on their website – which has now been taken down – says they are against “unmarried couples living together, homosexuality, bestiality, polygamy, etc.”
Now let me bring this back to Madonna; Twitter flagged her post yesterday for also promoting hydroxychloroquine as a Coronavirus cure while debunking the relevance of wearing masks to fight the virus.
Along with the video Madonna added the caption,
“The Truth will set us all Free! But some people don’t want to hear the truth. Especially the people in power who stand to make money from this long drawn out search for a vaccine Which has been proven and has been available for months. They would rather let fear control them and let the rich get richer, and the poor and sick get sicker. This woman is my hero. Thank you, Stella Immanuel.”
Ok, so to reiterate my confusion about whatever the hell Madonna was or is thinking, THIS post from the music maverick seems antithetical to the Madonna I thought I knew. My heart breaks because I am forced to face that the Madonna who saved my life at 14 years old by telling me I was unique and good enough – and just as good, if not better than my “heterosexual” counterparts, was a f**king fraud, or maybe she’s just becoming a en eccentric, crazy old cat lady version of her former self.
Even fellow icon and pop music maven Annie Lennox voiced concerned and replied directly to Madonna’s now deleted instagram tweet, writing,
I don’t know if at this stage of my life I’m emotionally stable enough to accept that Madonna, all this time, has been nothing but a fraud.
So …Madonna, GURL, I have put too much time into this relationship – the last 30 + years to be exact, so I’mma need you to explain this foolishness, sooner than later or I AM DONE.
This piece is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.