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How This Mega Pop Star Got Her ‘Big Break,’ Despite Not Even Wanting to Be a Singer

Imagine being a Broadway producer who rejected Madonna.

By Stephen Andrew Galiher

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There’s no denying that Madonna is one of the biggest pop stars in the world. But, did you know that she got her “big” despite not even having a desire to be a singer in the first place?

In a resurfaced 2005 interview, Madonna shared that she accidentally fell into pop stardom while trying to make it on Broadway. “I’d gone to a trillion auditions on Broadway for musical theater,” she said. “I finally figured out that being just a dancer was not going to get me anywhere in terms of paying the rent.”

“I decided, ‘Well, musical theater, that’s like a steady job’ [because] you get paid union rates.’ So I started auditioning for musicals, and I could combine singing and dancing, although at the time I didn’t have any interest in being a singer.

Madonna released her self-titled debut album in 1983

Madonna said that she “started going to auditions” but kept “being rejected” because of her short stature. “All the women in the chorus were gigantic [and had] long legs. Really long legs.”

“I finally went to this audition, and I danced every dance routine, and then they asked me to sing all these songs,” she went on to recall. “And then they made me come back, and then they made me dance with this guy, and then they made me sing another song, and it went on for hours and hours and hours.”

After being put through so much hassle, the aspiring Broadway star was over it. “I thought, ‘Enough already. Just hurry up and reject me.’ And then they didn’t say anything,” she shared. “They said, ‘Thanks. We’ll call you.’ The usual thing they always say.”

Madonna was once crowned queen of Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she got a surprising call. The opportunity presented to her forever changed not just her own life, but the very landscape of pop music. “That night, this French guy called me,” Madonna remembered. “He was one of the producers of the show. And he said, ‘Well, you didn’t get the job.’ And I said, ‘Well, what are you calling me for then?’

“He said, ‘Well, we want to make you a star… we think that you are really special.’ I was like, ‘You do?’ So, they took me to Paris,” she continued. “They were French record producers, and they put me in the studio with all of these record producer guys.”

She finally added, “They suddenly gave me all this money, and they put me in a really posh apartment, and I had a car and a driver. I freaked out because I went from having nothing to having everything.”

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