Madonna 'Advocate' Interview Explores Gay Fans, Betrayal, and Her Lasting Legacy

Madonna has long been associated with the LGBT community. When her career was on the rise she could be seen partying next to gays at New York clubs. She also delivered a queer perspective to her work, such as co-opting the Harlem drag balls for her “Vogue” video, featuring trans people and cross-dressers in her banned “Justify My Love” video, and focusing a lens on all kinds of kinks and tabboo topics in her Sex book. It could easily be argued that there hasn't been an artist with such a strong connection to the gay community since then—except, of course, Lady Gaga. However, as part of Ari Karpel's interview in The Advocate points out, Madonna did it all at a time when sex and homosexuals were both very feared subjects; she did it in the time of AIDS.

“I was extremely affected by it," she says of the then-unknown disease. "I remember lying on a bed with a friend of mine who was a musician, and he had been diagnosed with this kind of cancer, but nobody knew what it was. He was this beautiful man, and I watched him kind of waste away, and then another gay friend, and then another gay friend, and then another gay friend. They were all artists and all truly special and dear to me.” It was at this time in Madonna's life, Karpel explains, that her sense of self became entangled with that of gay men. “I saw how people treated them differently. I saw the prejudices, and I think probably I got that confused with, intertwined with, you know, maybe things that…ways that people treated me differently.”

While the initial focus of this in-depth interview is on W.E., the new film Madonna directed and co-wrote with Alek Keshishian who directed her in Truth or Dare 21 years ago, one of the most interesting elements is Karpel's thoughtful look at the singer/actor/director's relationship to her gay fans. He takes how Madonna “confused” her personal treatment with that of gay men, and how they in turn felt like they were a part of her personal life even if the majority of these (primarily) men and women had never met her. Karpel then makes the connection to the loyalty gay audiences displayed through some of her missteps (British accent, anyone?), the "twinge of abandonment" they felt when she spent less time publicly discussing LGBT issues, and how some ended up turning on her soon after. As Karpel writes, "That’s when bitching about Madonna became the great gay pastime."
To this point Madonna simply states, “I never left them. When you’re single, you certainly have more time to socialize and hang out with your gay friends, but then you get married and you have a husband and you have children, and your husband wants you to spend time with him. I’m not married anymore, but I have four kids, and I don’t have a lot of time for socializing.”

“I hope nobody’s taking that personally. It certainly was not a conscious decision. As it stands, most of my friends in England are gay. But I’m back,” she says, adding reassuringly, “Never fear.”

Read the full interview on The Advocate.

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