I don’t want to hear, I don’t want to go…
One month after manager Guy Oseary quietly confirmed that the planned Australian dates of the MDNA Tour were getting tossed out like a bouquet of hydrangeas waiting in her dressing room, Madonna has finally addressed her fans down under.
And much like the Spice Girls’ decision to cut their tour short in 2007 (a thinly-veiled excuse to cover the fact that Victoria Beckham simply grew tired of parading around the world with commoners), the material girl’s excuse was strictly maternal.
In an awkward audio video uploaded yesterday (recorded in what sounds like the bathroom of the NYC Kabbalah Center), the Queen of Pop calmly announced that she would not be heading to Australia later this year in order to spend time with her kids. “My children are my first priority, and I have two scales that I have to weigh in front of me: My job as as singer and an entertainer, and my job as a mother,” she explained to fans.
Now, I bow down to the Queen for mostly everything, but this is fairly shady. Obviously, her kids aren’t the real reason: If she wanted to go that badly, she could have just postponed the Australian dates to next year (as she did in 2009 for Europe on the Sticky & Sweet Tour.) Or she could have just…uh, gone. It’s a week or two away from home, tops—not an entire month.
Lourdes would just find a pack of cigarettes to chain-smoke. Mercy has already trained herself to be self-sufficient and prepare the kale finger sandwiches Mummy makes for tea time. The kids would be fine.
Either someone didn’t want to pay to schlep all those pom-poms and crucifixes over to Aussieland, or they’ve simply run out of funds after spray-painting “FREE PUSSY RIOT” on Madge’s back every night. Or maybe she simply finds kangaroos to be reductive.
But really, a shoddily recorded audio clip for fans waiting over 20 years for her return to their homeland (she hasn’t been there since The Girlie Show in 1993!) is a pretty mediocre way to apologize. Fly to Sydney for a one-off intimate gig. Or maybe a brief acoustic tour ‘round the country? Or, you know, at least show your face in the apology video.
C’mon, M.