Madonna Gets The Seal Of Approval After Covering An Iconic Empowerment Anthem During London Show

Gloria Gaynor has given Madonna her personal thumbs up after the Queen of Pop covered I Will Survive as part of her Celebration Tour.

Madonna kicked off her much-anticipated tour at London’s O2 over the weekend, during which she delivered a career-spanning set of hits.

Along with classics like Into The Groove, Like A Prayer and Vogue, the Grammy winner performed an acoustic cover of Gloria’s I Will Survive.

The stripped-back performance provided an especially poignant moment after the pop star was hospitalised with a life-threatening bacterial infection in the summer.

“I didn’t think I would make it, and neither did my doctors,” she told the London crowd during the show.

When Madonna sang the lyric from Gloria’s 1978 disco anthem, “Did you think I’d lay down and die”, she paused to ask the crowd three times: “Did you?”

Now, the original hitmaker has responded to Madonna’s cover.

Alongside a clip of Madonna’s performance, Gloria wrote on X (previously known as Twitter): “Congratulations on the launch of #TheCelebrationTour at [The O2].

“So happy that you are in good health and ready to have a holiday with fans around the world!

“By the way,” she added. “You have excellent taste in music!”

Reflecting on her health episode on stage, Madonna told fans on Saturday night: “I forgot five days of my life, or my death, I don’t really know where I was. But the angels were protecting me. And my children were there. And my children always save me, every time. 

“If you want to know how I pulled through and how I survived, I thought, I have got to be there for my children. I have to survive for them.”

Madonna previously postponed the North American leg that was due to kick off the jaunt after she was hospitalised, but will begin playing the rescheduled shows in December after her shows in the UK and Europe are complete.