{"id":2443773,"date":"2019-05-05T10:41:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T16:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=831408"},"modified":"2019-05-05T10:41:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T16:41:32","slug":"see-madonna-deliver-emotional-speech-on-aids-activism-at-glaad-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/see-madonna-deliver-emotional-speech-on-aids-activism-at-glaad-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"See Madonna Deliver Emotional Speech on AIDS Activism at GLAAD Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Madonna<\/a> received the GLAAD<\/a> Media Awards<\/a>\u2019 Advocate for Change award Saturday night at Manhattan\u2019s Hilton Midtown, where the singer delivered an emotional speech that was among the ceremony\u2019s highlights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first gay man I ever met was named Christopher Flynn,\u201d the 60-year-old entertainer and longtime advocate for gay rights said. \u201cHe was my ballet teacher in high school, and he was the first person that believed in me. That made me feel special as a dancer, as an artist and as a human being. I know this sounds trivial and superficial but he was the first man to tell me that I was beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flynn brought Madonna to her first gay nightclub in Detroit \u2013 \u201cthat got me grounded the rest of the summer,\u201d she added \u2013 and she was immediately entranced by the atmosphere and freedom of expression that the LGBTQ community offered. Flynn later encouraged her to move to New York and become a performer; she settled in Manhattan right as the AIDS epidemic reached its apex.<\/p>\n

Madonna tearfully recounted the friends she lost during that time, including her roommate Martin Burgoyne and the artist Keith Haring, who would have been 61 on Saturday. She recalls smuggling illegal drugs across the Mexican border to give to her friends with HIV, only to watch as the drugs worsened their conditions; she remembered going to the AIDS ward in a hospital one night and hugging every single patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came home smelling like shit and vomit and death and defiance,\u201d she said. \u201cI came home smelling like gratitude.\u201d The next morning, she says she awoke to paparazzi cameras pointed at her face, and reporters falsely claiming that she had been diagnosed with AIDS. In her speech, Madonna stressed that advocating for LGBTQ rights means dealing with \u201clies and bullshit\u201d and having to fight back as hard as possible.<\/p>\n

Other honorees at the event \u2013 hosted by drag star Shangela \u2013 included Don Lemon for a CNN segment on the Supreme Court case for same-sex wedding cakes, the FX series Pose<\/em> for Outstanding Drama Series and Andy Cohen, who was honored with the Vito Russo Award.<\/p>\n

Cohen\u2019s award was presented by his longtime friend Sarah Jessica Parker. In his speech, he recounted his journey from CBS intern to vanguard talk show host and creator of many iconic Bravo<\/em> series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finally came out to my mom,\u201d said Cohen, gesturing to his parents in the audience, \u201cthe first thing she said was, \u2018That\u2019s okay, I probably would\u2019ve hated your wife anyways.’\u201d He went on to say that his mother got involved in a local AIDS organization, and encouraged everyone to recognize the continued importance of advocacy for HIV\/AIDS health.<\/p>\n

Samantha Bee<\/a> and her writing staff were awarded Outstanding Variety or Talk Show Episode, for a segment titled \u201cTrans Rights Under Attack.\u201d In her speech, writer Nicole Silverberg stressed the threat that trans people are under in the U.S. and the world over, adding that the average life expectancy for trans women of color is 35. Both she and Bee said they hoped to bring more awareness to pressing trans issues with the segment.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madonna received the GLAAD Media Awards\u2019 Advocate for Change award Saturday night at Manhattan\u2019s Hilton Midtown, where the singer delivered an emotional speech that was among the ceremony\u2019s highlights. \u201cThe first gay man I ever met was named Christopher Flynn,\u201d the 60-year-old entertainer and longtime advocate for gay rights said. \u201cHe was my ballet teacher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2443773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 13:33:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}