Madonna bashes 'trivial' New York Times profile: Saying I'm 'disappointed' is 'an understatement'
Madonna is not happy with her New York Times Magazine profile.
The songstress was interviewed ahead of the release of her new album Madame X and discussed, among other things, the time Donald Trump claimed she was rabidly pursuing him as well as Harvey Weinstein being “incredibly sexually flirtatious and forward” toward her when they worked together. The performer doesn’t seem to have issues with those stories, but — make no mistake — she has issues with the article.
In an Instagram post, she blasted the interviewer Vanessa Grigoriadis, a well-known pop culture writer, the paper and the photo selections in the piece. Among her beefs: the focus on her age (the title: “Madonna at Sixty”) and the writer criticizing her, not in person but in the piece, for using the expression “I felt raped” with regard to some of her music being leaked online. Madge said she was sorry she “spent 5 minutes with” Grigoriadis and called the newspaper “one of the founding fathers of the patriarchy.”
“To say that I was disappointed in the article would be an understatement,” Madonna wrote. “It seems you can’t fix society and its endless need to diminish,
disparage or degrade that which they know is good. Especially [strong] independent women.”
She wrote that Grigoriadis “spent days and hours and months with me and was invited into a world which many people don’t get to see.” However, she accuses her of instead focusing the article on “trivial and superficial matters.”
One of Madonna’s issues was about the focus on her age, which she said “would never have been mentioned had I been a MAN!”
She also cited Grigoriadis noting the “ethnicity of my stand-in.” In the piece, it said Madonna, practicing for her performance at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards, was staring at her double for the show, who was “younger and looked Asian.” (Surprisingly, Madonna did not mention Grigoriadis’s commentary of the “work” Madonna had “on her face.” But that may fall under the age commentary.)
She went on to slam the writer for taking a jab at her for using the word “raped” to describe how she felt when unfinished tracks from Rebel Heart were leaked online and the album ultimately underperforming.
“She added, ‘I felt raped,’ Grigoriadis wrote in the piece, “It didn’t feel right to explain that women these days were trying not to use that word metaphorically.”
Madonna responded by saying she feels “raped” by Grigoriadis.
“Women have a really hard time being the champions of other women even if they are posing as intellectual feminists,” she wrote. “I’m sorry i spent 5 minutes with her. It makes me feel raped. And yes I’m allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of 19.”
She wrote the whole thing was “proof that the NYT Is one of the founding fathers of the Patriarchy. And I say — DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY woven deep into the fabric of Society. I will never stop fighting to eradicate it.”
Grigoriadis posted several tweets yesterday about the interview — including “I met Madonna.” She hasn’t yet responded to Madonna’s rant.
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