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Madonna's speech at MJ's tribute - VMAs 2009


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today i watched again the speech M gave at the VMAs in 2009 honoring Michael Jackson and i was really moved by what she is saying.

i remember M being criticized by some of the usual haters for "including" herself in the speech but i think it was just made to draw the parallels between her capacity of going through a difficult childhood and his inability to do so as he did not really had a childhood. everything he did was recording music, doing shows and performing with his brothers.

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today i watched again the speech M gave at the VMAs in 2009 honoring Michael Jackson and i was really moved by what she is saying.

i remember M being criticized by some of the usual haters for "including" herself in the speech but i think it was just made to draw the parallels between her capacity of going through a difficult childhood and his inability to do so as he did not really had a childhood. everything he did was recording music, doing shows and performing with his brothers.

Yeah, I agree with you. That's how I took it as well.

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I have to admit I cringed when I first saw this because M brought up herself in the beginning, but I understand what she was trying to accomplish in the speech. I think she was really sadden & shocked when Michael croaked..

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Guest Rocco Papa

I definitely think there was a reason for why she mentioned herself in the speech. The people who criticized her for doing so weren't listening to what she was saying.

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she sure knows how to give a speech...anyways, Michael DID have a childhood, a different one, but a childhood! ask the children that work in the mines and have no present or future about changing their childhoods with michael. I think he was maybe too sensitive for the real world, and yes, a king.

and she looked great, by the way!

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This was one of the best speeches she's done (and she's done many amazing ones). Very moving and appropriate. I loved her so much that day...

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may I just say that I actually cried after this speech and tribute? Madonna, my idol, giving a speech about one of the signature figures and one of the main idols of my childhood, who had just died. I literally sobbed after this, because somehow, for me it felt like my "musical mother" was actually giving a speech about my "musical dad". I never actually put them next to each other or could imagine one talking with or about the other... (I didn't even know they went out for dinner, once until Idk 2008?) But during that moment it truly felt like the QUEEN was talking about the KING and it moved me a lot. I'm not sure if you get what I'm trying to say, it's actually kind of hard to describe, but as awkward it may seem at first, M was the perfect choice for this speech.

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I've watched this live and on YouTube for more than 10 times since then... M was the perfect choice to do it and people will soon realize how big this moment was in the history of pop music...

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Brilliant and heartfelt speech. But the king stuff was a bit unnecessary and didn't make sense with her repeated plea to see him as a "human being".

What makes the speech special is that it was reflected in a personal insight rather than a bunch of trite cliches that anyone can inoffensively say about anyone. Why ask Madonna to deliver this speech, seeing as she was no close friend, if not to get the perspective and insights of someone who traveled a similar but obviously very different path.

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I wish the video posted showed the very beginning when she first walks on stage with no introduction and the place goes mad. That is a fucking star! Anyone that blasts her for mentioning herself clearly stopped hearing what she was saying from that point forward or are just too dense to to comprehend her message. Clearly, those criticisms were desperate attempts to attack a truly flawless moment from the Queen. If she had talked about him as if they were best friends for years she would've been called out for that too. I love how she made a point to say she wasn't that close to him.

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It was a very honest speech. And she brought the uncomfortable things up "busy passing judgement" "slipping through the cracks". It was actually refreshing to have someone adress this stuff considering that everything before since he passed away was so full of hypocrisy especially from his inner circle and other artists. It was a lovefest and each of them couldn't wait to put their faces in front of the next camera to say how much they loved him and how much of an inspiration he was. It was too obvious that all they wanted was a piece of the limelight. It was disgusting. And I always thought, where have you been asshole while he was around. Did you ever talk to him? No. And even if, you were probably one of his "yes people" (I'm sure there were no naysayers around him, he would have fired them, from my perpsective he wasn't a person open for criticism). And then this people who were working hard whitewashing him. All of a sudden they were all walking on egg shells. And finally there comes Madonna and gives a very eloquent speech not even pretending they were friends but says a few times too often "I" and gets criticized for being an attention seeking bitch when in fact she is the only one to even understand what i was to walk in his shoes. She knows about the "lynchmob". For different reasons of course. And one might argue that in her case it was even worse considering all she did was making an artistic statement whereas what he (allegedly) did was a crime. And isn't it some kind of rule that giving those kind of speeches you should speak about things you know to make a more authentic or to create a connection even if there is none? And from this point of view she did everything right.

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It was a very honest speech. And she brought the uncomfortable things up "busy passing judgement" "slipping through the cracks". It was actually refreshing to have someone adress this stuff considering that everything before since he passed away was so full of hypocrisy especially from his inner circle and other artists. It was a lovefest and each of them couldn't wait to put their faces in front of the next camera to say how much they loved him and how much of an inspiration he was. It was too obvious that all they wanted was a piece of the limelight. It was disgusting. And I always thought, where have you been asshole while he was around. Did you ever talk to him? No. And even if, you were probably one of his "yes people" (I'm sure there were no naysayers around him, he would have fired them, from my perpsective he wasn't a person open for criticism). And then this people who were working hard whitewashing him. All of a sudden they were all walking on egg shells. And finally there comes Madonna and gives a very eloquent speech not even pretending they were friends but says a few times too often "I" and gets criticized for being an attention seeking bitch when in fact she is the only one to even understand what i was to walk in his shoes. She knows about the "lynchmob". For different reasons of course. And one might argue that in her case it was even worse considering all she did was making an artistic statement whereas what he (allegedly) did was a crime. And isn't it some kind of rule that giving those kind of speeches you should speak about things you know to make a more authentic or to create a connection even if there is none? And from this point of view she did everything right.

this!!!!

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I'm sure MJ wouldn't have done something like that if it was Madonna who was dead.

Well, Michael's life wasn't really the same was it? He had a pretty difficult time during the last 20 years, and Madonna was never put down on the scale that he was... Sure she was called trashy, joked about but she was provocativ and confident in her work and self... but it was never a deep personal character assination she went through.

Madonna's speech was perfect. The way she stood there as Madonna, cool, confident, no showbizz tackiness, just she and her words, and she let the entertainment business have it. She could have done a phony speech of how she loved MJ and he loved her and how he was the King and a legend, but she was real. Reality is what was needed, to show that Michael was infact a human being, not just Michael Jackson the star. She focused on him as a person, she didn't claim to know him inside out, he was an aqquaintence, but Michael somewhere in the Heavens I imagine felt thankful to Madonna that night.

Madonna kept comparing her life to his to give him more of a reality. We know his story, childstar, adultstar etc. But Madonna comparing herself wasn't to say 'Look at me!', it was to say... 'he was just like us'.

Michael Jackson's fans loved that speech because they felt every word. They loved him and supported him through the darkness, through the shit, through the insults, and his death broke their hearts, and what rubbed salt in the wounds was the outpouring of love from people who never even gave a shit in the first place. It was like the people who were really hurting were pushed to the side to make way for the realm of new found love for MJ... might seem childish but at the time thats how it would feel. Such frustration. Even Robin Gibb (rip) said 'If Michael had been given this much love while he was here, he'd still be here.'

It's funny that Madonna and Michael never became closer, he had a thing for confident bossy women, and Madonna fitted that. Maybe in the 90s she was a bit 'out there' for him, but Lisa Marie was a bit firey, Liz Taylor, Diana Ross,... People say he was jealous of Madonna, but I don't think that's it, he and Prince had a rivalry but they still hung out and he went to Prince concerts with Chris Tucker in the 2000's etc. Maybe fingering herself on the phone was too much hahahahahaha.

MTV did good with their tributes, BET was terrible, however MTV deserved to have shit delivered to them the way Madonna delivered it, they put one over on Michael making him a joke with the 'Millenium Award'/Birthday tribute. Then when he dies they admitted it, like Bashir admitted he believed Michael was innocent.

This was special

Look at this... how can he sit there and have the nerve
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billiejean, a wonderful post! Took the words right out of my month as well.

I also have to agree with MPowered because I had the exact same feelings. MJ and Madonna both were my idols of my childhood (and still are my idols obviously), both giving me confidence as well as strength to always keep on going. I always loved their work and was a vivid supporter and, when necessary, defender of almost everything they did. When MJ passed away it did break my heart into pieces. Seeing one of my two idols who has always been there for me being gone all of a sudden and totally unexpectedly, and, the most horrible aspect, in such a tragic way. Not to mention the fact that he was so unprepared, so unwilling, to leave this world at that moment - it couldn't have happened at a more unfitting time. This still makes me cry sometimes if I think about it. I know it might sound loonish what I say right now, but just imagine if it was M who died such a tragic death instead of Michael - I'm sure most of us M fans would have been torn apart as well.

And yes, the speech was yet another beautiful moment in my M fan history, albeit just as heartbreaking too. Beautiful because my biggest idol was holding a speech about my other biggest idol. Beautiful because it made me realize how lucky I can consider myself to be that the beautiful and smart person I adore, Madonna, is alive and well. Beautiful because of the content of the speech being so much more elaborate and meaningful than any other tribute talk which came from other artists. Heartbreaking for the exact same reasons - that what she was saying was nothing but the tragic truth. That the other beautiful person and idol M was talking about was not alive and well. He should have been on stage with her, with us, that day, not lying in a freaking casket.

Oh well sorry if I deviated a bit from the topic, but I was just letting my thoughts speak. My point - yes, it was a beautiful speech. I'm glad we have people like M here even though other people of the same kind have been treated like dirt and driven into their own graves. Love her so much.

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I'm sure MJ wouldn't have done something like that if it was Madonna who was dead.

He would have moonwalked to the polodium, giggled like a girl, hehe, let's see who now gets the Michael Jackson artist of the millennium award bitch, shamone, and than moonwalks back off the stage.

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Today i watched again the speech M gave at the VMAs in 2009 honoring Michael Jackson and I was really moved by what she is saying. I remember M being criticized by some of the usual haters

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video?id=8602341

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsdfFi_bgoU

The Usual Suspects indeed !!

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La Toliet is such a sweetheart. :inlove:

I loved how she gushed over the speech and stood up for Madonna. You could tell all the bitches on that panel thought they would get her blessing to unleash their anti-Madonna bile. TOO BAD. :rotfl:

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La Toliet is such a sweetheart. :inlove:

I loved how she gushed over the speech and stood up for Madonna. You could tell all the bitches on that panel thought they would get her blessing to unleash their anti-Madonna bile. TOO BAD :rotfl:

:rotfl::chuckle:

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And Barbara is the worst when she implies that M came out with that speech only to suck in all the media glare but that like others she wasn't a friend when he needed people around him, which, once again, is a lie that serves to portray Madonna as the mean, opportunistic bullly character.

Madonna, was virtually the only A-lister to express sympathy to MJ about the way he was being vilified in the press at the time of the second round of pedophilia accusations in 2003 and that infamous Martin Bashir MJ interview. She spoke about how exploiting a friendship for money (Bashir) was disgusting. It was in that interview with NBC's Matt Lauer during the promotion of American Life

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