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Madonna labelled herself a “freedom fighter” after she revealed that she defiantly went ahead with a string of concerts in Russia last year, despite being told by Vladimir Putin’s government that she would be thrown in jail for ‘promoting gay behaviour’.
The singer also said she was the target of death threats after she went against the country’s controversial anti-gay propaganda laws.
"Needless to say, I did not change one moment of my show. 87 of my fans were arrested for gay behaviour – whatever that is."
Aligning herself with the feminist punks, who were jailed for hooliganism and religious hatred after they staged a protest performance in a Moscow cathedral, she said: “The right to be free, to speak our minds, to have an opinion, to love who we want to love, to be who we are – do we have to fight for that?
The A-list opposing Russia's anti-gay laws
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“I’ve always considered myself a freedom fighter since the early ‘80s when I realised I had a voice and I could sing more than songs about being a material girl or feeling like a virgin.
“And I have definitely paid for and have been punished for speaking my mind and for sticking my neck out for this kind of discrimination. But that’s OK.”
“I’d like to thank Pussy Riot for making pussy a ‘sayable’ word in my household,” she added. “Now, my eight-year-olds say it all the time.”
Her comments came after British viewers were left shocked by the violent vigilante scenes in Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Hunted. The show exposed how gay Russians are routinely sought out and tortured by gangs in the former Soviet state.
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