“It could be,” Madonna said, grinning. “Why do you have to know everything?”
Graham Norton had just asked whether her plans for next summer were in this country. He had already worked out, from her talk of “something bigger” after a round of promo tours, that she meant something worth guessing at. His eyes went wide. Fans have spent the days since deciding the answer is Glastonbury.
The exchange comes from a BBC One interview filmed at Koko in London, ahead of the 3 July release of her album Confessions II. The record is billed as a sequel to Confessions on a Dancefloor, her 2005 Grammy winner.
A festival that keeps missing her
Emily Eavis, who organises Glastonbury, has never hidden that she wants Madonna on the bill. Talk of a headline slot built before the 2024 festival, after Eavis gushed about seeing the singer at the O2 Arena in London. The Independent later reported that negotiations collapsed when organisers said they could not cover the cost of building the stage show from Madonna’s Celebration tour at Worthy Farm.
Now the singer is dropping hints again. “I think I’ll do promo tours for a while, then in the summertime something bigger,” she told Norton. He answered that it sounded exciting and that he thought he knew what she was talking about.
She would not be drawn further. “I’ve told you a lot of interesting things, that’s what you get, and the rest you have to wait for,” she said, adding that being an adult means being able to delay gratification. Norton, by his own admission, is not one. “Wow, I am not an adult,” he said.
Bookmakers, or rather the industry expert who compiled theoretical prices for OLBG, have taken the hint seriously. Madonna sits at 1/2 to headline in 2027. Harry Styles is next at 5/4, then Olivia Dean at 6/4, with Oasis and Sam Fender both at 2/1. No betting sites are taking bets on the event, so the numbers are a parlour game and nothing more.
Kylie at the bar
The Glastonbury tease was not the only surprise. After chatting with her producer Stuart Price, Madonna and Norton went to find a drink, and the woman behind the bar turned out to be Kylie Minogue. “It’s a moment,” Minogue said, reaching for both their hands.
Norton asked whether Minogue really features on Confessions II, something she had denied before. The two stars traded a look, and Minogue got the giggles. “It’s my job to be mysterious,” Madonna said.
The pair shared a stage for the first time in March 2024, during the Celebration tour. Minogue wore a “Madonna” top that night, answering the bedazzled “Kylie Minogue” tank top Madonna had worn at the MTV Europe Awards in Stockholm in 2000. Madonna admitted on the sofa that she had been a little jealous of her. Her then-husband, she said, had a crush on Minogue.
She also spoke about her brother Christopher, whose death shaped some of the songwriting, and about working with her daughter Lourdes for the first time. Writing about hard things is “like an exorcism,” she said. Lourdes, she added, “has a much better voice than I do.”
Sources
- Glastonbury 2027 Headliner Odds: Madonna 1/2 Favourite After Graham Norton Hint
- Madonna to headline Glastonbury? A Kylie duet? Queen of pop’s tell-all BBC interview
