On January 22 2017, Madonna released this statement in response to her controversial statements made during her speech at the Women’s March on Washington:

“Yesterday’s Rally was an amazing and beautiful experience. I came and performed Express Yourself and thats exactly what i did.

However I want to clarify some very important things. I am not a violent person, I do not promote violence and it’s important people hear and understand my speech in it’s entirety rather than one phrase taken wildly out of context.

My speech began with ” I want to start a revolution of love.” ♥️  I then go on to take this opportunity to encourage women and all marginalized people to not fall into despair but rather to come together and use it as a starting point for unity and to create positive change in the world.

I spoke in metaphor and I shared two ways of looking at things — one was to be hopeful, and one was to feel anger and outrage, which I have personally felt. However, I know that acting out of anger doesn’t solve anything. And the only way to change things for the better is to do it with love.

It was truly an honor to be part of an audience chanting we choose love.”

Madonna