Madonna Rep Says Paris Concert Was Declaration of Love, Not Snub

1:20 PM PDT 7/29/2012 by Rebecca Leffler

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Despite angering Marine Le Pen supporters and French fans who cried "refund" when a last-minute concert ended after 45 minutes, the singer's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg called the l'Olympia show "a heartfelt thank you to France."

Madonna has finally shed a ray of light on controversy surrounding her recent concert in Paris that saw outraged fans screaming “refund” last Thursday.

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The live concert at Paris’ Olympia concert venue, scheduled as an unexpected extra stop on the singer’s MDNA tour, lasted for just 45 minutes, much to the dismay of fans camped outside for hours and days before the show and the thousands of people watching the concert live on Youtube. However, according to Madonna’s spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg, the Material Girl’s last-minute concert wasn’t meant to be a full show, but rather one of a handful of “club dates” that, in the past, “were never more than 45 minutes.”

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Rosenberg said that, rather than being a snub to French audiences, the show “was her way to honor her love for French artists, French cinema and a tribute to France’s long history of welcoming and inspiring artists, authors, painters, poets and minorities from other countries over the years.”

According to Rosenberg, the show cost the pop star almost $1 million to produce and involved a “tremendous effort” on the part of organizers to keep ticket prices at a “reasonable” range. “The show was not billed as her full MDNA concert,” Rosenberg said.

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Despite the cries of “refund!” and boos from the crowd when Madonna left the stage at the end of the show, the concert was actually meant as a peace offering to France after the singer angered right wing party leader Marine Le Pen by showing a video of her face with a swastika juxtaposed on it at a July 14 show in the French capital, though the singer's longtime rep did not directly address a recent report that a near-riot was sparked by Le Pen supporters. The show was “planned as a heartfelt thank you to France,” Rosenberg explained, adding: “And by the way, she put on a fabulous show which was streamed for millions of fans around the world.”

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