Madonna Says "Sorry" To New Yorkers

Madonna has apologized to New Yorkers after declaring the city had "lost its buzz," insisting her comments were taken out of context. The singer, who started out in the Big Apple in the late 1970s, shocked New Yorkers when she told Vanity Fair magazine New York was no longer the vibrant center of the arts it once was. But she insists her words were taken "too literally," explaining: "What I said was taken slightly out of context because I really love New York. That's where my career started. I was referring to, in a way, missing those early days when the art world, the downtown scene, the music world were colliding. So it was a reference to missing that time and a lot of those people. I am not plugged in the way I used to be, and I miss those days."

But Madonna stands by her claim that New York is missing the great artistic characters that inspired the city in the 1980s, telling New York magazine, "When I first came to New York my friends were Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. There was this crazy interface for me of art and life, and I don't see that so much anymore in New York."