Madonna's attempt to honor prominent black leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. went awry after posting images of them wrapped in black cords.
According to AOL, the singer has been promoting her latest album, Rebel Heart, throughout the holidays with the album cover showing her faced wrapped in black cords. While posting the images of the leaders, she also posted the captions, "This #rebelheart fought for freedom!" and "This #rebelheart had a dream!" The legendary pop star has posted several photoshopped photos of other figures like Frida Kahlo and Michael Jackson in the black cords, but on Friday the singer received huge backlash for using the images of Mandela and MLK.
The singer released a statement following the backlash explaining that she didn't mean to compare herself to the historical figures and certainly didn't mean to add an explicit tone to the images with the black cords. She also added that her fans created the photoshopped images and she simply reposted them.
"I'm sorry. I'm not comparing myself to anyone," she said. I'm admiring and acknowledging [their] Rebel Hearts. This is [neither] a crime or an insult or racist! I also did it with Michael Jackson and Frida Kahlo and Marilyn Monroe. Am I say I am them, NO. I'm saying they are Rebel Hearts too. And I didn't do it, my fans did. And I just re-posted those photos. My fans aren't racist either. If they put me in the same category as those other people, Thank you. I'm very flattered and I hope one day to live up to 1 100th of what those people accomplished."
Check out the photos here and what fans had to say about the images above.
Source: AOL| Photo Credit: Splash News
