Social media users weren’t impressed with Madonna’s self-absorbed “tribute” to soul singer Aretha Franklin at Monday night’s MTV Video Music Awards (VMA).
As Fox News reports, the recently-turned Madonna was presenting the Video of the Year award when she departed from the script to celebrate Franklin, and her remember death at 76.
But the perennial pop star spent much of her celebration of Franklin talking about herself, saying how the singer had “changed the course” of Madonna’s life and how Madonna had once sang a song identified with Franklin at an audition and how Madonna had such a difficult childhood in Detroit — apparently resembling a “prostitute” and living in “crack house” of a building.
As Madonna held forth about her own life and career, the anger over social media was mounting.
“That was so so so so disrespectful,” tweeted one critic. “Aretha ain’t even put down her purse in heaven yet.”
Madonna finally recalled that she was supposed to be celebrating another singer and proclaimed, “Long live the queen” in salute to Franklin.