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Fourteen F-bombs in 20 minutes: When Madonna gave the most censored interview on American television

Thirty years ago, the singer ended her provocative era in style. On David Letterman’s show, she used obscene language, showed her underwear, insulted the host and refused to get up when the interview was over

Afterwards, following another exchange of words made with frozen smiles, Madonna refuses to participate in a prepared part of the program because she feels that the script “isn’t funny.” She throws some of the papers on the floor. A 2023 article by UNILAD reflects on how various resurfacings of the video of the interview on Twitter have highlighted the specific moment of the program in which Letterman pressures Madonna to kiss a man in the audience. In 20 minutes, Letterman and Madonna anticipated the free-wheeling, corrosive and rapid-pace interviews that triumph today in capsule-form on social media (think of Graham Norton or Amelia Dimoldenberg).

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