Madonna Covers 'British Vogue,' Explains Why She Has No Living Role Models

Madonna relaxes in a bathtub for the cover of British Vogue‘s June 2019 issue.

This is the first time that the 60-year-old entertainer is on the mag’s cover since February 1989. Here’s what she shared with the mag:

On her career being a battle: “People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough. So they just keep trying to find a hook to hang their beef about me being alive on. Now I’m fighting ageism, now I’m being punished for turning 60.”

On role models: “There are no living role models for me. Because nobody does what I do. And that’s kind of scary. I can look back at women who I think were great and amazing – freedom fighters, like Simone de Beauvoir or Angela Davis – but they didn’t have kids. Being a single parent of six children, I continue to be creative and be an artist and be politically active, to have a voice, to do all the things that I do. So I mean, there isn’t anybody in my position.”

On Lady Gaga: “People got very excited about that we were enemies, when we never were enemies.”

See the full feature in the June issue of British Vogue, available on digital download and on newsstands Friday, May 10.