The “Material Girl” expects a little substance when it comes to profiles. After an epic cover story on her was published in the New York Times Magazine on Wednesday, June 5, Madonna slammed the publication for what she deemed a puff piece. The article was titled “Madonna at Sixty.”
“The journalist who wrote this article spent days and hours and months with me and was invited into a world which many people dont get to see,” the Grammy winner wrote the next day on Instagram of the Vanessa Grigoriadis-penned profile. But, continued Madge, she “chose to focus on trivial and superficial matters such as the ethnicity of my stand in or the fabric of my curtains and never ending comments about my age which never would have been mentioned had I been a MAN!”
She added of Grigoriadis, “Women have a really hard time being the champions of other women even if. they are posing as intellectual feminists. I’m sorry I spent 5 minutes with her. It makes me feel raped.” The pop star added that she is “allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of 19.” (She also used the analogy in the article itself, saying she “felt raped” when her record Rebel Heart leaked months ahead of its release in 2015. After printing this Madonna quote, Grigoriadis wrote, “It didn’t feel right to explain that women these days were trying not to use that word metaphorically.”)
The 8,000-word, wide-ranging, career-spanning article is ostensibly pegged to her 14th studio album, Madame X, which comes out June 14. But there are multiple mentions of aging. At one point Grigoriadis describes the Michigan native preparing for her Billboard Music Awards performance in May, writing, “the sex bomb at 60 was slightly less than bionic.”
Also consider this passage: “When we talked about aging, I was surprised when she turned the issue back on me,” wrote the author. “‘I think you think about growing old too much,’ [Madonna] said later. ‘I think you think about age too much. I think you should just stop thinking about it.’” The writer later admits, “I felt a little foolish for thinking that she would want to talk to me about my own concern about aging, like an older sister. She was an icon, not a shoulder to lean on.”
Indeed, she proved she was not. Though the legend was pleased with the portraits taken by her “dear friend,” the photographer JR, “to say that I was disappointed in the article would be an understatement.”
At the end of her lengthy Instagram post, the “Ray of Light” singer pledged continued action against misogyny. “Further proof that the venerable N.Y.T. 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.”
