Village People’s Victor Willis okay with ‘Y.M.C.A’ for Trump and the gays
Victor Willis, one of the Village People’s founders, posted to social media on Monday defending President-elect Donald Trump’s use of the song “Y.M.C.A.” and threatening legal action against any news organization that labels the iconic tune a gay anthem.
Willis, who portrayed the cop with a nightstick in the band, cowrote “Y.M.C.A.” with Jacques Morali who provided the music while Willis provided the lyrics. Morali died of AIDS-related illness in 1978*.
Willis acknowledged he had asked Trump to stop using the song after receiving “over a thousand complaints” from fans.
“With that many complaints, I decided to ask the President-Elect to stop using Y.M.C.A. because his use had become a nuisance to me,” Willis wrote in his post to social media on Monday.
Willis said he reconsidered his decision after seeing so many other artists withdraw the rights to their songs from the President-elect. He said the decision to reissue the licensing agreement with Trump proved financially sound.
“Y.M.C.A. has benefited greatly from use by the President Elect. For example, Y.M.C.A. was stuck at #2 on the Billboard chart prior to the President Elect’s use. However, the song finally made it to #1 on a Billboard chart after over 45 years (and held on to #1 for two weeks) due to the President Elect’s use,” Willis wrote. “The financial benefits have been great as well as Y.M.C.A. is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of Y.M.C.A. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.”
(*sic. It was actually 1991.)
I like the bit at the end where he stresses he actually supported Kamala Harris in the recent debacle, it’s not like he approves of Trump… just the amount of money Trump’s made him. I like, too, that he’s happy for gay folks to consider it a “gay anthem”, but don’t you dare actually call it that or he’ll sue you.
As for another debacle that has “reached a fever pitch” amid Trump’s continued use of “Y.M.C.A.,” according to Willis, the singer wrote that any branding of the track as a “gay anthem” is “completely misguided” and “damaging to the song.” He also threatened legal action against “each and every news organization that falsely refers” to it as such starting in January 2025, although he personally doesn’t mind if “gays think of the song as their anthem.”
“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout, and since one of the writers [Jacques Morali] was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people,” Willis wrote. “To that I say, once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not … such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to [illicit] activity for which it does not.”
“Y.M.C.A.” has indeed been widely adopted by the LGBTQ community over the years, with many interpreting the lyrics as references to the gym chain’s reputation as a popular cruising site back in the day — plus, the track comes from a 1978 album titled Cruisin’. Even so, Willis’ latest post is not the first time he’s sought to distance the track from the gay anthem label, writing in a 2020 Facebook post: “No one group can claim Y.M.C.A. as somehow belonging to them or somehow their anthem. I won’t allow my iconic song to be placed in a box like that.”
So you don’t really want teh pooves to claim the song as “their” anthem, but you’re fine with exploiting that demographic to make a career and a fortune out of them. Hope any lawsuit Victor does try gets laughed out of court. What a cunt.
