Madonna’s VMA Speech On Michael Jackson

The World’s Queen of Pop, Madonna, paid a touching tribute to Michael Jackson at the 2009 VMAs last night with a speech about his difficult life and their on-off relationship.

Madonna opened the VMA’s with a speech, followed by a video montage of his work. Madonna said: “I felt his pain, I know what it’s like to walk down the street and feel like the whole world is turned against you.”

Despite the two singers’ uncanny similarities, The King & Queen of Pop were never very close.

“When I first heard that Michael had died, I was in London – days away from the opening of my tour. Michael was going to perform in the same venue as me a week later. All I could think about in that moment was, I had abandoned him. That we, had abandoned him. That we had allowed this magnificent creature that once set the world on fire to somehow slip through the cracks.”

Madonna acknowledged that Jackson did not have a childhood and that when we’re deprived things we become “obsessed by them”.

“I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and not able to defend yourself because the roar of the witchhunt is so loud you’re convinced your voice can never be heard except I had a childhood and was allowed to make mistakes and find my own way in the world without being in the spotlight.”

Critics have said that her speech was self indulgent and managed to make the tribute as much about herself as Michael Jackson. At the risk of being a stereotypical Gay Man and I thought her speech was both touching and very honest and I believed every word she said was from the heart.

Madonna closed her heart-felt tribute with with the statement:

“There will never be anyone like him ever again, he was a king. Long live the king.”

Maybe there will, maybe there won’t…perhaps we just witnessed the Elvis of our time.

You Can Watch Madonna’s VMA 2009 Speech Here