A survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting called out Madonna over her latest gruesome music video, which features unsettling imagery of a mass shooting reminiscent of scenes from the Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 dead and 53 injured.
Brandon Wolf, who survived the 2016 shooting, said he “appreciated” the message Madonna was trying to convey but questioned her for failing to reach out to any of the surviving victims prior to the release of her controversial “God Control” video.
“What I don’t particularly appreciate and the questions I have for Madonna center around the timing, center around her not involving the Pulse community at all in this conversation,” Wolf said, according to a video released by TMZ.
“She didn’t acknowledge that it was it was Pulse that inspired the intro to this video. She didn’t acknowledge the 49 people who died for that artistic inspiration,” he continued. “This is the same Madonna who– right after the Pulse shooting happened – posted a picture of herself kissing Britney Spears to honor the 49 victims who had just lost their lives.”
“I just question and wonder where Madonna’s head is at,” he added.
Another survivor, Patience Carter, said the pop icon’s video was “really hard to watch.”
“I understood what she was trying to do with bringing awareness to the topic of gun control, but I definitely felt that wasn’t the right way to go about doing it,” she said.
“Because, for someone like me who actually saw those images, who actually lived those images, to see them again dramatized for views, dramatized for YouTube, I feel like it was really insensitive,” Carter added.
Madonna reportedly made the video because she “can’t take it anymore.”
“I made this video because I want to draw attention to a crisis that needs to be addressed. To me, this is the biggest problem in America right now,” she said.