'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Victor Willis shared a post on Facebook on December 3, 2024, to thank President-elect Donald Trump for using his song Y.M.C.A., and clarified it wasn't a gay anthem. The singer was one of the co-writers of the 1978 hit song that Trump has been using in his political campaign.
Willis' post came four years after the 73-year-old politician began using Y.M.C.A. in his political campaigns. He still uses the song and according to Victor Willis, the song has received substantial financial success due to the same.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Victor Willis' net worth is $30 million. He is one of the founding members of the musical group Village People, which is named after Manhattan's Greenwich Village. While the group was founded in 1977, Willis left them to pursue a solo career three years later. However, he returned to the group as its leader in 2017.
Trending
Royalties from songs like Y.M.C.A. are Victor Willis' major income streams
Victor Willis is one of the co-writers of the hit song Y.M.C.A. and owns 50% of the Village People group's music catalog. The catalog is an asset estimated to be somewhere between $20-$30 million.
He left the group three years after its formation to focus on his solo music career but joined it as the leader in 2017. When he returned to Village People in 2017, Willis negotiated a deal with the group which made him its exclusive licensee.
Although Willis was a part of Village People for only three years in the beginning, during that time the group released six studio albums. The albums had several chart-topping hits like Y.M.C.A., In the Navy, Go West, and Macho Man. It is worth noting that Victor Willis often stands out during his performances as he dresses up as a cop or a navy officer.
The group's hit song Y.M.C.A. was added to America's National Recording Registry in March 2020. The Registry preserves songs and recordings that are considered culturally, aesthetically, or historically significant. The Library of Congress also described it as "an American phenomenon."
According to Celebrity Net Worth, the group's songs are often used in Broadway musicals, commercials, slot machines, and TV and movie streamings to date. This brings the group and Victor Willis a substantial amount from their royalties and publishing rights.
Willis thanked Trump for choosing Y.C.M.A. in his Facebook Post
Victor Willis took to Facebook to share that he received over a thousand complaints since 2020 about Donald Trump using Y.M.C.A. in his campaigns. He noted that these complaints led to him deciding to ask the President-Elect to stop using the song.
The Village People founding member also disclosed the reason behind Trump's continued use of the song.
"However, the use continued because the Trump campaign knew they had obtained a political use license from BMI and absent that license being terminated, they had every right to continue using Y.M.C.A. And they did," the singer wrote.
While Victor saw other artists withdrawing the use of their material from Trump, he started thinking differently about it. He noted that it happened after his wife told him that Trump seemed to "genuinely like Y.M.C.A." and seemed like he was "having a lot of fun with it." After hearing that, Victor Willis claimed that he didn't have the heart to prevent the now-president-elect's use of the song and informed BMI about it.
However, the singer's actions weren't purely altruistic either as he wrote about the positive impact the Trump campaign had on the song. He wrote that the song was "stuck at #2 on the Billboard chart" before Trump began using it. Victor noted that after Trump began using the song, it "finally made it to #1 on a Billboard chart after over 45 years." He added that the song stayed in the first place for two weeks after Trump used it.
Victor added that the track was also estimated to have grossed millions of dollars since Trump's continued use of it. He added that he was glad about the president-elect's continued use of the song and thanked the politician for choosing Y.M.C.A.
In his Facebook post, Victor Willis also addressed the rumors about Y.M.C.A. being called a "gay anthem." He said that it was a "false assumption" based on the fact that his co-writer was gay, alongside some of the Village People members. Calling the assumption misguided, he announced that he and his wife would start suing any organization that falsely refers to the song as a gay anthem after January 2025.
