Madonna has expressed outrage at the re-election of Donald Trump, describing him as “a convicted felon, rapist, bigot”.
Writing on Instagram, she said: “Trying to get my head around why a convicted felon, rapist, bigot was chosen to lead our country because he’s good for the economy?” She also posted a picture of a cake with the words “Fuck Trump” etched in frosting along with the caption: “Stuffed my face with this cake last night!”
The singer has previously castigated Trump, saying at the Women’s March in Washington DC in January 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration, that she’d thought “an awful lot about blowing up the White House”. After a backlash among Trump supporters, she said: “I do not promote violence and it’s important people hear and understand my speech in its entirety rather than one phrase.”
Billie Eilish has also expressed dismay in the wake of Trump’s election. She told a concert audience in Nashville on Wednesday: “A person who is a … let’s say convicted predator, let’s say that … someone who hates women so, so deeply is about to be the president of the United States of America.”
She made the comments prior to a performance of TV, a 2022 song with lyrics referring to the removal of the federal right to abortion access, a decision made by supreme court justices installed during the Trump presidency: “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial / While they’re overturning Roe v Wade.”
Eilish added to the audience: “I want you to know that you’re safe with me and you’re protected here and that you are safe in this room.”
Trump has not been criminally convicted of rape or predatory behaviour. However, in August 2023, a judge found in a civil claim that it was “substantially true” that Trump raped journalist E Jean Carroll in an incident in late 1995 or early 1996. In 2022, Carroll had sued Trump for battery and defamation, with a jury finding him liable for sexual abuse. Trump countersued for defamation, but that lawsuit was dismissed.
In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime. He was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, after he recorded reimbursements to his former lawyer Michael Cohen – who had paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels following her claims of an affair – as “legal expenses”. Trump’s sentencing is currently scheduled for 26 November.
Other musicians expressing outrage at a second Trump presidency include Jack White, who is suing the Trump campaign over allegedly unauthorised use of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. White wrote a screed on Instagram which reads in part: “Americans chose a known, obvious fascist and now America will get whatever this wannabe dictator wants to enact from here on in.”
Ariana Grande, Cardi B and Ethel Cain also lamented the election in its immediate aftermath, along with other entertainment figures such as John Cusack, Viola Davis and Jamie Lee Curtis.
“We wake up and fight,” Curtis wrote. “Fight for women and our children and their futures and fight against tyranny, one day at a time. One fight at a time. One protest at a time. That’s what it means to be an American.”
