It was a mistake, singer says of infamous 1984 performance

Jan 31, 2012 13:26 GMT  ·  By
Madonna stops by Jay Leno to speak of the many projects she's working on at the moment
   Madonna stops by Jay Leno to speak of the many projects she's working on at the moment

Back in 1984, when female pop stars were still performing live fully clothed, Madonna did the unthinkable and rolled on the floor at the MTV Video Music Awards and exposed her underwear. She didn't mean to, she says.

The Queen of Pop is very busy these days, what with a new album and a new single coming out, and her performance at the Super Bowl halftime now in the works.

As if that wasn't enough, she also has a movie out, which she wrote and directed, called “W.E.”

She stopped by Jay Leno the other day to promote these projects and, among other things, she also talked a bit about the infamous MTV moment that kept people talking for years – and still generates plenty of interest, it would seem.

As the first video embedded below will show, Madonna insists that she never meant for her performance to be so scandalous: she was simply trying to be practical about losing her shoe.

“Here’s what happened,” she says. The moment she started coming down the stairs, she lost one of her shoes and did not know what else to do to get it back.

“I lost my shoe, my white stiletto… so I pretend I meant to do this. So I dove onto the floor and I rolled around and I reached for the shoe,” she says.

“And as I reached for the shoe the dress went up! And the underpants were showing... I didn't mean to,” the singer adds.

The second video below will show (of the 1984 performance) that she's speaking the truth: she rolls on the floor and then, when she gets up, she's wearing shoes.

Still, the second time she does it – that wasn't because she'd lost her shoe.

In other Madonna-related news, the star is also getting some media for throwing shade at Janet Jackson for her infamous Super Bowl life show, when her breast was exposed to the millions watching.

As Madge sees it, doing this type of stunts is neither “cutting edge” nor “original,” so she doesn't plan to do anything even remotely similar to it.