“Extremely envious”: The singer Madonna was always jealous of
At one point, Madonna was unquestionably the biggest artist in the world. This is the level of stardom that other artists ought to be envious of and would aspire to achieve themselves, and would put you in a position of wanting to ensure that you remain at the top of your game.
Reaching the absolute pinnacle of infamy does come with pitfalls that can be hard to confront, but if you’ve got the strength to be able to handle it, then there’s no reason as to why you wouldn’t want to be regarded on the same level. Madonna was arguably handed a shot at becoming a global superstar early on in her career, and she promptly seized it with both hands.
Madonna had it all by the late 1980s, whether that was in terms of her songwriting, vocal ability, looks or general creative vision. Everyone wanted to be like Madonna because she was the one on top and deservedly so.
She’d practically achieved it all as well, with several worldwide number one singles to her name by the end of the decade, with a Grammy Award being pretty much the only major accolade to have eluded her by this point in her career. For a decade’s work, this is a phenomenal set of accomplishments to have to one’s name, and there was no doubt that Madonna had worked hard to be in this position.
However, while she was first emerging, she would have had to look up to other artists for inspiration as a way of setting her sights on a certain goal. This led her to be envious of one of her contemporaries who had seemingly achieved more than she had in a shorter period of time, and it gave her the impetus to work harder at reaching these landmark achievements that characterised her immense run of fortune in the ‘80s.
During an interview with The Sun in 2012, she proclaimed that seeing Whitney Houston emerge as one of the decade’s most formidable pop acts pushed her to focus all of her energy on becoming the artist she would eventually earn recognition as.
“One thing I was struck by with Whitney Houston is I remember she sort of came out as a singer around the same time I did,” she stated. “I remember looking at her singing and hearing people talk about her, and just thinking, ‘Oh my God. She’s such a beautiful woman, and my God, what an incredible voice. I wish I could sing like that.’ I just remember being extremely envious of her and also touched by her innocence.”
Of course, for a period of time, Whitney Houston could also be perceived as someone who had it all, but there came a point where she was in constant competition with Madonna, whose slower start was eventually rectified by a string of immensely popular singles that dominated the charts around the world.
Madonna would end up surpassing the achievements of Houston, becoming the best-selling female solo artist of all time, and all it took for her to get there was the promise of some stiff competition that would drive her to up her game.
