Madonna on M.I.A.'s Super Bowl Middle Finger Gesture: "I Wasn't Happy About It"
Madonna
Viewers weren't the only ones taken aback by M.I.A.'s middle finger gesture during Madonna's Super Bowl halftime show. The Material Girl herself says she was "really surprised" by it since it's such an "irrelevant thing to do."
"I was really surprised. I didn't know anything about it," Madonna said on Ryan Seacrest's radio show Friday, adding that she found out after the show in the elevator. "I wasn't happy about it. I understand it's kind of punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity [that] it seemed negative. It's such a teenager, kind of irrelevant thing to do. There was such a feeling of love and unity there — what was the point? It was just out of place."
NBC apologizes for M.I.A.'s "spontaneous" middle finger gesture during Super Bowl halftime show
NBC and the NFL have already apologized for M.I.A.'s bird flip, which, according to the network, was too "spontaneous" for it to be censored in time.
The so-called "digit malfunction" didn't mar Madonna's Super Bowl experience though. "I started crying. I felt an incredible sense of warmth, love and support," she said. "To see an entire stadium light up like candles it was ... like a religious experience."