Village People Thank Trump for Playing Y.M.C.A At Rallies

Donald Trump loves playing “Y.M.C.A” at his rallies since 2020, though the Village People have been split on the use of the song. Now Victor Willis has taken to Facebook to thank the President-elect for sending the song up the charts.

Victor Willis told Billboard in October that Trump was ‘legally entitled’ to use the song because he applied for BMI’s political use license. Willis clarifies that he supported Kamala Harris during the election, but that he doesn’t dislike Trump. He took to Facebook today to clarify his position and took umbrage with the media declaring the song a ‘gay anthem.’

“Why I allowed President-elect Trump’s continued use of Y.M.C.A. and why the song is not really a gay anthem,” Willis titled the post. “I am the singer and writer of the lyrics to the hit Y.M.C.A.” he begins. “In fact, as was adjudicated and ruled in a U.S. District Court, I wrote 100% of the lyrics, and my writing partner, Jacques Morali wrote the music.”

“Since 2020, I’ve received over a thousand complaints about President-elect Trump’s use of Y.M.C.A. 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.”

“However, the use continued because the Trump campaign knew they had obtained a political use license from BMI and absent that license being terminated they had every right to continue using Y.M.C.A. And they did.”

“In fact, I started noticing numerous artists withdrawing the President-elect’s use of their material. But by the time I said to my wife one day, hey, ‘Trump’ seems to genuinely like Y.M.C.A. and he’s having a lot of fun with it. As such, I simply didn’t have the heart to prevent his continued use of my song in the face of so many artists withdrawing his use of their material.”

“So I told my wife to inform BMI to not withdraw the Trump campaign political use license. My French partners were contemplating legal action out of France. So I had my wife contact our French partners and ask them to stay out of the Trump campaign’s use of Y.M.C.A. because it is a U.S. matter and I will make the decision on his use. Our French partners quickly backed off of their objection to his use.”

Willis continues and says the “Y.M.C.A.” song has benefitted greatly from the President-elect’s use of the song on the campaign trail. The song clocked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart prior to the election. The song jumped to #1 and held the position for two weeks “due to the President-elect’s use,” Willis continues.

“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 continued use of Y.M.C.A. and I thank him for choosing to use my song.”

Willis also takes umbrage with the fact that the song has been branded a ‘gay anthem’ in media, stating he did not write the lyrics with being gay in mind. “I knew nothing about the Y being a hang out for gays when I wrote the lyrics,” he states, “Jacques Morali (who was gay) never once stated such to me. In fact, Jacques never once told me how to write my lyrics.”

“So 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 illicit activity, the assumption that the song alludes to that is completely misguided.”

That’s all well and good for Victor Willis, who may very well have not intended the song to be a gay anthem when he wrote it. But the thing about culture is that the audience gets to decide how they feel about the song. If the song is blasted out at a gay night club (that pays for a license to use the song much like Trump did) for men to dance to—then it very much is a gay anthem for those men.

Gay culture has embraced many songs in this manner including Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” which is literally about a woman ending a terrible relationship with a man. To put it simply, friends of Dorothy don’t care if it was written and intended as a gay anthem or not—they’ve claimed it as such and will continue to do so for years. The Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men” shares the same distinction.