For the last 40 years, pop icon Madonna has cemented her status as a bonafide gay icon. This year, the Queen of Pop wants to remind her LGBTQ fans that without them, she wouldn’t still be here.
In a touching message shared to her Instagram on Thursday (June 6), Madonna paid tribute to the queer community and thanked them for their ceaseless support of her career. In a short video, Madge interspersed clips of herself performing during her Truth or Dare era with photos of Pride marches and protests around the world, while a stripped-back instrumental from her anthem “Vogue” plays in the background.
“When Truth or Dare was released in 1991 I had no idea it was going to cause such a stir,” she wrote in her caption. “But that could be said of most of the things I do!! I simply wanted to capture the world I was living in — and share it with the world.”
In her message, Madonna shared her gratitude for the gay community, who “always supported me from day one” and inspired much of her work. “When I arrived in New York for the first time in 1979 — You made an awkward girl from Michigan feel like she fit in, like she wasn’t a freak. That it was OK to be different,” she wrote. “I am forever indebted. In this increasingly chaotic world, we are living in. I will never stop fighting for diversity, inclusiveness and equal rights for all!!!”
With the final lines of her post, Madonna gave her LGBTQ+ fans a call to action: “DON’T HIDE YOUR PRIDE! Let’s celebrate this month and every month,” she wrote, along with five rainbow flag emojis.
The superstar’s message comes just one month after she wrapped her globe-spanning, career-encompassing Celebration Tour in Rio de Janeiro on May 5. The tour made $225.4 million dollars, becoming her highest grossing tour since 2012’s MDNA Tour and her sixth trek to gross more than $100 million. With her latter accomplishment, the singer became the fifth artist in history (and the first woman) to surpass the nine-figure mark six times.
Check out Madonna’s full Pride Month message below:
