WTF Happened to Madonna?

Is there any artist with a more enormous effect on pop culture than Madonna? You could probably rank Madonna with Elvis Presley and The Beatles for the impact she had on pop music, and while she has her detractors, no one can doubt her talent. With a new biopic starring Julie Garner on the way, in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we look into Madonna’s origins, her film work and what she’s up to nowadays, including those wacky TikTok posts. Even after forty years at the top of the charts, people are obsessed with the Queen of Pop.

One thing Madonna always struggled with was getting respect as an actress, which is a topic we dive into here. While no one ever denied her talent as a singer, her feature-film career got off to an unfortunate start with the movie Shanghai Surprise, which paired her with Sean Penn, who she was married to at the time. That flop made her an object of ridicule for critics, and it didn’t matter that her performances in movies improved in time, with her role as Breathless in Dick Tracy a highlight. While some critics came around with Evita, she never achieved the movie respect her successor, Lady Gaga, did. That said, she had a huge hit with the concert documentary, Madonna: Truth or Dare, which was the movie all of our parents wouldn’t let us watch back in 1991 but we went to see anyways.

This episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity is written (with Brad Hamerly), produced, edited and narrated by Taylor James Johnson. Watch last week’s episode below and let us know your favourite Madonna movie and song in the comments!