The Blessed Madonna has called out Róisín Murphy after she claimed that censorship had a “chokehold” on the arts in a controversial speech given to Parliament recently.
The Irish singer first came under fire for her views towards the trans community in 2023 when she posted a comment on Facebook using her personal profile, criticising the use of puberty blockers – medicines used to delay the changes of puberty for transgender and gender-diverse youth.
More recently, Murphy gave a speech at a launch event for the latest report by Freedom In The Arts, speaking in front of Parliament about “censorship” in the arts.
“The creative soul of this country […] has always thrived on discomfort, on the freedom to be wrong, to offend, to pivot and to surprise ourselves,” she said, per The Telegraph. “Without that freedom, we don’t get better art, we simply put artists into a chokehold and suffocate the life out of our culture.
“We need free, equal and open debate. The arts must breathe freely again.”
She went on to claim that artists must “self-censor” to protect themselves from ‘cancel culture’ when sharing their views online, over fears that they might “offend the wrong people” or lead to them “losing funding”.
“It’s not the first time in history artists have faced oppression and it won’t be the last.
We should support each other, come together and defend our shared space, our territory, the place where imagination can roam free.
Because if they come for one of us they will eventually… pic.twitter.com/tB6WOXJIxf— Róisín Murphy (@roisinmurphy) April 29, 2026
American musician The Blessed Madonna, who identifies as non-binary, has since hit out at Murphy in a lengthy Instagram post, writing: “What is wrong with you Roisin? Are you going through it? Are you going through some kind of psychological change in your life?”
“There was a time I would be surprised that you stood in Westminster Palace – a literal seat of power, with a literal microphone, being literally platformed – and framed yourself as someone being silenced by a conspiracy of the T in LGBT.”
The post concluded: “A boycott is not simply people who decline to purchase your album and express their rejection of you in your Instagram comments. What you are experiencing is considerably simpler: consequences.”
You can read The Blessed Madonna’s post in its entirety below.
After the initial controversy in 2023, Murphy backtracked on her comments, saying that she “cannot apologise enough for being the reason for this eruption of damaging and potentially dangerous social-media fire and brimstone”.
Despite that, the singer made another comment online about trans people late last year – posting a chart purporting to show that the number of young people identifying as trans or non-binary has dropped significantly in recent years. “It was never real,” she wrote in the caption. “Terribly sad though. Absolute havoc wreaked on children, families and society.”
Following Murphy’s comments in that post, Istanbul’s Back In Town Festival removed the singer from its line-up last October; a move she responded to with a lengthy X post claiming “the mob” was out “in force”.
“Just for the record, I have zero hate toward trans people; I do not deny anyone’s existence,” she wrote “The post that has caused such frantic panic among the trans activist mob is a graph that shows a steep decline in trans and non-binary identity in young people over the past few years in the USA.
“My declaration ‘it was never real’ refers to the contagion that was undoubtedly aided by the submission of the media, captured medical institutions, and social media derangement.”
As well as The Blessed Madonna, CMAT and Lambrini Girls have been among those who criticised Murphy‘s posts about transgender people.
Murphy has continued to tour with big names and perform at big festivals since the controversy in 2023. In 2024, she joined Johnny Marr in supporting New Order at a huge outdoor show in Manchester, and that summer also saw her headline All Together Now Festival in Ireland alongside The National and Jorja Smith.
Also in 2024 she joined Pulp, Justice, Troye Sivan, PJ Harvey, Bikini Kill, Charli XCX, and more in performing at Primavera Sound, and in 2025 she performed at festivals including LIDO, MEO Kalorama, and Electric Castle.
