Madonna Owes The Russian Government $1 Million For Publicly Supporting LGBTQ+ Rights

It's worth it!

Russia is a socially conservative country and although they decriminalized homosexuality over 10 years ago, Gay Pride parades are banned for the next 100 years.

 

Madonna says that she owes the Russian government about $1 million for an event she participated in supporting LGBTQ+rights in the country in 2012.

 

According to the Toronto Sun, on Aug. 9, 2012, Madge was in St. Petersburg, she delivered a moving speech, praising love and freedom and comparing LGBTQ+ fights to the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s.

 

At the time she was thought to have been fined $17,000 US over the incident, but Madonna took to social media to say it was actually higher.

 

“I never paid,” Madonna insisted, alongside the hashtags “#freedomofspeech #powertothepeople #mdna”.