6 hours ago
6
Victor Willis, the lead singer of the Village People, has died age 74. The group shared the news in a statement: “Victor passed on Monday 30 June 2026 of a short but aggressive illness,” they said. “Privacy is requested.”
The writer of what were widely accepted as canonical gay anthems in YMCA and Macho Man – also performed in costumes of hyper-masculine male stereotypes – Willis refuted the idea that YMCA was a gay anthem and threatened to sue “each and every news organisation” that made the claim.
“As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life,” he said in 2024.
After burning bright in the disco era, Willis left the group in 1980 and spent decades mired in drug use and legal trouble.
Willis had a flip-flopping approach to Donald Trump’s use of YMCA in his campaigns and pageantry. After approving its use for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, Willis retracted his support as the Black Lives Matter movement came to prominence, but then changed his tune again.
He repeatedly said he was ideologically opposed to Trump – and in 2024 supported Kamala Harris – but admitted the that president’s use of the track had “greatly benefited the song”. In 2025, the Village People performed at the Turning Point USA ball to mark the president’s second inauguration, as well as the pre-inauguration rally.
On Wednesday, Trump posted a tribute to Willis on Truth Social, writing: “He was a great and happy guy who loved that I used his groups song, YMCA, at my Rallies. We will think of Victor every time YMCA is played, like today, and all throughout this July Fourth Birthday week.”
Willis was born in 1 July 1951 in Texas. He grew up singing in a Baptist church run by his father. He performed in a high school band, the Ballads, which supported the Temptations. After leaving school he became a Broadway performer, and met his future wife, Phylicia Rashad (then Phylicia Ayers-Allen, who would later star on The Cosby Show), while starring in the musical The Wiz. The couple were married from 1978 to the early 80s.
It was on Broadway that Willis was discovered by French musical producer and composer Jacques Morali and business partner Henri Belolo, who invited him to sing on an album they were making aimed at gay dancefloor crowds in the US.
Morali had the idea of creating a disco group based on archetypal American stereotypes: “We have an idea,” they told their lawyer, as recounted in Mojo magazine in 1998, “to put together a very special group, very American and very happy.” Willis also wrote songs for another Morali group, Philadelphia disco act the Ritchie Family.
After that “happy” record, 1977’s Village People, became a hit, Willis and Morali recruited the rest of the group’s characters – largely bit-part actors, models and dancers – from an ad stating: “Macho types wanted. Must have moustache.” They steadily established the band’s multi-costume look, including a leather daddy, construction worker and cowboy. Willis performed as a naval officer or policeman.
With the lineup solidified, the band released the album Macho Man, which spawned a hit single of the same name – and the enduring 1978 smash YMCA, which hit No 1 in 17 countries.
“I liked the fact that it was so obviously gay – while everybody denied that fact,” Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant said of the song. “It became de-sexed. There was almost a conspiracy to not realise it was about having sex with men in the YMCA showers. It was too good a record to admit that. I thought it was outrageous!” Pet Shop Boys would go on to cover Village People’s 1979 hit Go West.
That year, the Village People had another hit with In the Navy. The US navy allowed the band to use their craft to record the video in exchange for using the song in a recruitment campaign – until the navy realised what it might be inferring (“They’re signing up new seamen fast”) and changed their minds.
Willis left the band in 1980 as they were preparing for a feature film, Can’t Stop the Music, which bombed critically and commercially. Morali and Belolo thought it was time for him to go it alone, although a solo album recorded in 1979 would remain unreleased until 2015.
Willis returned to the group for the 1982 album Fox on the Box, but departed again the following year. Willis then retreated from public life and experienced longstanding substance abuse issues.
In 1993, he was charged with raping and beating a woman and later acquitted. In 2005, he was arrested in California and found in possession of cocaine and a handgun. He pleaded no contest but failed to appear for sentencing and went on the run – even appearing on the TV programme America’s Most Wanted.
In 2006, he was arrested and found with cocaine again, given probation and sentenced to rehab after a string of drugs and firearms offences and serial probation violations. A judge showed him leniency, citing his “potential which remains untapped”, and sent him to the Betty Ford rehab clinic in Calfornia. After completing rehab, he released a statement to fans, saying that he was finally free from drug use and was “looking forward to living the second part of my life drug-free”.
In 2007, he married lawyer and entertainment executive Karen Huff, who helped him file a copyright case against the companies that owned the Village People’s music. In 2015, a federal jury ruled that he was entitled to 50% ownership of 13 of their songs, including YMCA.
In 2017, Willis rejoined Village People ahead of the release of the 2018 album A Village People Christmas.
In 2020, YMCA was preserved in the National Recording Registry of the US Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
