Madonna, 1958

Best-selling musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress. Famous for her contribution to women’s sexual liberation in pop culture.

When she was 58 years, old Madonna stepped on the stage to receive Billboard’s 2016 Woman of the Year award. The highest-grossing female touring artist of all time was selected due to her influence on music, her vision, innovation, philanthropic work, and her contribution to feminist change towards equal rights. Madonna used the occasion to deliver a daring speech, describing the sexist and ageist behavior that she had to overcome in her career as a musician, actress, and entrepreneur.
 
She outlined her path from her childhood in a small Michigan town, through her first years as a struggling dancer in late 1970s New York City, to becoming the “Queen of Pop Music” with 14 albums, dozen of top hits worldwide, sales of 300 million records and many awards. In 2019 she released her 14th album, ‘Madame X,’ a name given to her by Martha Graham.
 
She delivered her first birth at 38 and is now a single mother of six. Through her career, she pushed the boundaries of music and gender politics. Her influence on women’s liberation was by presenting new ways of owning her sexuality through mainstream media.
 

More Interesting Anecdotes:

• Her given name was Madonna Louise Ciccone.
• She dropped out of University of Michigan.
• She had only $35 on her when she arrived alone in New York at the age of 20.
• In the early days of her New York career she worked as a waitress, performed as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist in rock bands and modeled for nude painting classes.
• She operates two philanthropic foundations: Ray of Light Foundation and Raising Malawi.
• In 1990, she was the first woman entrepreneur to appear on a Forbes cover, and in 2019 was listed in the magazine’s America’s Self-Made Women with estimated net worth of $570M.
• She explored her spirituality through years of studying Kabbalah.
• She wrote a children’s book.
• Her mother passed on when she way 5 years old.