How old is Madonna? The Billboard Awards Woman of the Year is old enough to know better, according to some. Madonna’s age is relative. She was born in 1958, but refuses to let the decades make any difference to how she enjoys her world.
According to the Rendezview column in the Daily Telegraph, there are haters who take every opportunity to point out that Madonna is “not going into the grey with much dignity.” Madonna’s age just doesn’t happen to match her feelings, and she’s not letting the numbers change anything.
Back in her heyday, good Catholic parents warned their kids that Madonna was nothing like her namesake, also know as the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven among others.
The Desperately Seeking Susan star may not make it to heaven’s royalty roster, but Madonna is a ray of light and the queen of pop and possibly just about everything else here on earth.
Now at age 58-years-old, Madonna has a message for kids who are heading down the path she forged back in the 80s. The “Like a Virgin” singer learned the hard way that age matters when you’re a woman.
If careful adults were worried about kids trying what they used to call sins of the flesh, Madonna knows the only real sin of the flesh that matters for women in the entertainment industry is the sin of getting old.
“And finally, do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized and vilified and definitely not played on the radio.”
The “Express yourself” singer was “fully ferocious, funny and brutally honest” when she spoke at the Billboard awards. According to Billboard , Madonna’s Billboard speech told it like it was, and unfortunately, all too often still is.
“Thank you for acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in the face of blatant sexism and misogyny and constant bullying and relentless abuse.”
The abuse included being raped on a rooftop during her first year in New York City before she made it big with her first No. 1 hit, “Like a Virgin.”
Madonna never let any of the misogyny or hatred stop her, including the disapproval of the Vatican. When Madonna was a kid, she was raised in a traditional Catholic home and “wanted to be a nun” when she grew up.
That changed, and by the time she was belting out “Papa Don’t Preach,” families like hers were telling their own kids to look the other way.
Madonna just kept on fighting, and according to the Daily Beast, she told James Corden on his Carpool Karaoke that her refusal to give in got her “excommunicated by the Vatican three times.”
Now, Madonna’s kids are worrying her with their own “rebellious” attitudes. But there’s a big difference between what the older generation stressed about when Madonna was a kid and what she worries about now.
The way Madonna sees it, her rebel heart kept her fighting for a career and respect from the industry. Even as a kid, she soon got past the temptation of glitz and glam, didn’t waste her time, and now says “she herself doesn’t drink, smoke or party.”
Madonna clearly remembers “wishing I had a female peer I could look to for support,” and now more than anything, the mother-of-four wants to be that peer for other women.
Things may not have changed all that much over the years. The reaction to Madonna’s twerking on Carpool Karaoke included a lot of haters. Piers Morgan “was so disgusted” that he pretended to vomit on Good Morning Britain and called the iconic Material Girl an “embarrassing old woman.”
Morgan is only a few years younger than Madonna, and not exactly known for acting like a dignified old man himself, but he thought it was just fine to judge Madonna for “this nonsense” just because she’s a woman in her fifties.
What do you think? Should Madonna’s age change who she is, or should she get to be herself and the kind of role model she wants for her kids?
[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]