Madonna marks World AIDS Day with heartrending speech on living through the height of the outbreak
She said she told the audience about losing her friends so they would realize how lucky they are to be alive.
By John Russell for LGBTQ Nation –
During a stop in the Netherlands last Friday on her current world tour, Madonna marked World AIDS Day with an emotional speech.
“Today is World AIDS Day. Do you know that? Is that important to everybody?” she asked from the stage at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome. “Maybe it seems like it’s so far away that it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just another holiday. But let me explain something to you: There is no cure for AIDS. People still die of AIDS did you know that?”
She described her early years in New York as the epidemic began to emerge. “When I first came to New York, I was lucky enough to eventually meet and become friends with so many amazing artists, musicians, painters, singers, dancers. The list goes on and on,” she recalled. “And then one day, people started getting sick, and nobody could understand what was happening. People were just starting to lose weight. People were dropping like flies. They were going to the hospital, and nobody understood what was happening.”
“The news started calling it ‘the gay cancer,’” she continued, “because it was predominantly in the gay community. Which was a terrible shame, because I don’t know if you understand this right now, but in the early 80s, it was not cool to be gay. It was not accepted to be gay. Did you know that? Or do you just take it for granted right now?”
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