This family reunion could get really awkward. Turns out that Madonna, whose 1989 video for the song “Like a Prayer” was called “a blasphemy and insult” to the Catholic church, is related to Pope Leo XIV, who was named head of the church in May.
The two are “ninth cousins, various times removed,” Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the PBS show Finding Your Roots, recently revealed in the New York Times. His team traced the new pope to the pop star through a distant maternal relative born in the 1590s.
“Through one Canadian ancestor,” Gates wrote, “Louis Boucher de Grandpre, who was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, the pope is related to numerous Canadian-derived distant cousins, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac, and Madonna.”
Madonna/Youtube
The “Material Girl” has a difficult history with the Catholic church she was raised in. Most notably, the racy video for “Like a Prayer,” which was from her album of the same name. It was her fourth and a follow up to 1986’s True Blue, which featured singles such as “Open Your Heart” and “La Isla Bonita.”
The video for “Like a Prayer” depicted an innocent Black man being imprisoned by law enforcement, while Madonna goes to a church where she dances in front of burning crosses and with a wax saint who looks like the accused man and comes to life.
Madonna was already a big deal, and the video was set to premiere on Entertainment Tonight ahead of its MTV debut. It arrived late, the show’s former producer Lu Murray recalled in 2019.
“I remember snatching the video and running into an edit bay and handing it to the editor and saying we got to cut this very quickly,” he told the outlet. “We popped in the video and started watching it, and then we looked at each other and I went, ‘Uh oh. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to air this.'”
They made the decision to only use certain portions during the end credits.
“We stayed away from the burning crosses and some of the other aspects that were going to create controversy,” Murray said. “We played it safe that day.”
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MTV then aired the video in full.
Pope John Paul II and the church came out against it. The “Cherish” singer had secured a $5 million endorsement deal with Pepsi before the video dropped, but it was ended.
Then, in September 2023, the soft drink company released a commercial that had been planned and canceled because of the hubbub. She celebrated the belated victory.
“34 years ago I made a commercial with Pepsi to celebrate the release of my song Like a Prayer,” Madonna wrote on Instagram. “The commercial was immediately canceled when I refused to change any scenes in the video where I was kissing a black saint or burning crosses. So began my illustrious career as an artist refusing to compromise my artistic integrity. Thank you @pepsi for finally realizing the genius of our collaboration. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”
Life is a mystery.