Madonna was inspired to become AIDs activist after the death of gay friend
Madonna has been known to be a gay icon. (Getty)
Pop star Madonna tragically lost a friend to the AIDs crisis, which inspired her to become an activist.
Madonna’s late brother, Christopher Ciccone, revealed in previously unheard tapes how the deaths of Madonna’s gay friends Martin Burgoyne and Christopher Flynn impacted her.
Burgoyne was friends with Madonna before she became famous and unfortunately died in 1986 when he was 23 from AIDs.
They first met when he was a bartender at a club in New York’s East Village and the two friends even shared an apartment. Burgoyne went on to manage her first club tour and designed the cover for Madonna’s 1983 single ‘Burning Up’.
Ciccone spoke about a 1987 gig during Madonna’s Who’s That Girl tour, which raised $400,000 for the American Foundation for AIDs Research in Burgoyne’s honour.
“The Aids benefit that we did at Madison Square Garden was emotionally taxing for everybody. Especially for [Madonna], because of Martin [Burgoyne]. There had been so many friends of ours who had Aids,” Ciccone said.
After Burgoyne contracted AIDs, Madonna paid for his medication and even convinced her then-husband Sean Penn to fly to Mexico to retrieve a drug that was previously thought to possibly cure the disease.
Madonna told The Times: “What could I do? I loved him. And people with Aids are treated like they’re lepers or something. If they contract AIDs, all their friends disappear. That’s not a friend. How could I desert him? He was really my best friend.”
Another one of Madonna’s friends, and her dance teacher, Christopher Flynn, who died from an AIDs-related disease at the age of 59 in 1990.
Ciccone died in October aged 63 from cancer. Madonna and her brother previously had a falling out but reconciled before his death.
The tapes in which Ciccone spoke of Madonna’s friendships with Burgoyne and Flynn will be used as part of a 90-minute documentary airing on Sky on December 30 titled Becoming Madonna.
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