To mark World AIDS Day, Madonna posted
tributes to two friends she lost to the disease, including artist
Keith Haring and former roommate Martin Burgoyne.
“Today is #WorldAIDSDay,” she said
in an Instagram post on December 1. “Let's pause and reflect. We
have lost so many incredible people to this disease and yet we have
found no cure. Please GOD in this lifetime. #Wakeupworld
#globalfamily.”
In another post, Madonna remembered the
stigma Haring faced.
“He was a big AIDS activist when
everyone was calling it GAY cancer,” Madonna captioned a photo of
herself with Haring. “I was with him the day he died of AIDS. He
said what hurt him the most was how people did not want to touch door
knobs after he touched them. The discrimination then was next
level.”
In a separate post, Madonna shared an
old picture of herself in the kitchen of an apartment she shared with
Martin Burgoyne, who was 23 when he succumbed to AIDS.
“In my apartment on the L.E.S. [Lower
East Side] where I lived with my best friend Martin Burgoyne who died
of AIDS,” Madonna wrote in the caption. “I held his hand as his
spirit left his body. He was so beautiful and talented and full of
life like so many others. In those days, it ravaged people and took
so many lives in the blink of an eye. We have come a long way but we
still have NO cure! Let's pray for this and more tolerance in the
world.”
The 60-year-old Madonna famously
included a leaflet on AIDS in the sleeve of her Like a Prayer
album.