Victor Willis, one of the Village People's founders, posted to social media on Monday defending President-elect Donald Trump's use of the song “Y.M.C.A.” and threatening legal action against any news organization that labels the iconic tune a gay anthem.
Willis, who portrayed the cop with a nightstick in the band, cowrote “Y.M.C.A.” with Jacques Morali who provided the music while Willis provided the lyrics. Morali died of AIDS-related illness in 1978.
Willis acknowledged he had asked Trump to stop using the song after receiving “over a thousand complaints” from fans.
“With that many complaints, I decided to ask the President-Elect to stop using Y.M.C.A. because his use had become a nuisance to me,” Willis wrote in his post to social media on Monday
Willis said he reconsidered his decision after seeing so many other artists withdraw the rights to their songs from the President-elect. He said the decision to reissue the licensing agreement with Trump proved financially sound.
“Y.M.C.A. has benefited greatly from use by the President Elect. For example, Y.M.C.A. was stuck at #2 on the Billboard chart prior to the President Elect’s use. However, the song finally made it to #1 on a Billboard chart after over 45 years (and held on to #1 for two weeks) due to the President Elect’s use,” Willis wrote. “The financial benefits have been great as well as Y.M.C.A. is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of Y.M.C.A. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.”
Willis also said he has no objection to the LGBTQ+ community’s love of the popular tune.
“I don't mind that gays think of the song as their anthem,” Willis continued.
He does dispute that the song was written to celebrate gay life, saying that “to the extent that Y.M.C.A. is considered a gay anthem based on the fact that gays once used certain YMCA’s for elicit activity, the assumption that the song alludes to that is completely misguided.”
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Willis said he was unaware the Y.M.C.A. was popular with the gay community as a place to meet other gay men, sometimes to engage in sexual activity, when he wrote the song.
“As I stated on numerous occasions, I knew nothing about the Y being a hang out for gays when I wrote the lyrics to Y.M.C.A. and Jacques Morali (who was gay) never once stated such to me,” Willis wrote.
Willis points out that the song has grown popular with a far broader audience, noting the song is on the “playlist of almost every wedding, bar mitzvah, sporting organization, and the song is used in commercials and motion pictures and products worldwide.”
“The true anthem is Y.M.C.A.’s appeal to people of all stripes including President-elect Trump,” Willis wrote.
Willis said he would sue any news organization that labels the song as a gay anthem.
“Therefore, since I wrote the lyrics and ought to know what the lyrics I wrote is really about, come January 2025, my wife will start suing each and every news organization that falsely refers to Y.M.C.A., either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem because such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to elicit activity for which it does not,” Willis wrote.
“Y.M.C.A.” was written in 1978 and debuted on the Village People's album Cruisin'. First popular in LGBTQ+ bars and clubs, it grew in popularity worldwide with people boisterously joining to mimic the music group’s dance routine using their bodies to sign the letters of the song. In 2020, the Library of Congress added “Y.M.C.A.’ to its National Recording Register.
Willis stressed he supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
