"The Voice of Italy" winner Sister Cristina Scuccia recently covered Madonna's "Like a Virgin," and received a shoutout from the Queen of Pop herself Thursday on social media.
Madonna posted split screen photos of herself and visuals from Sister Scuccia's "Like a Virgin" music video on her Facebook and Twitter accounts, promoting the cover to nearly 20 million followers.
The first photo is a screenshot of Madonna's 1984 "Like a Virgin" video, in which she dances through the streets of Venice. The opposing photo features Sister Scuccia similarly posed in her "Like a Virgin" video, which was also shot in Venice.
Madonna captioned the photo, "Like A Virgin? #bitinghard." "Biting" is slang for copying or stealing someone's style, but can also reference biting one's lower lip in delight. In her follow-up post, however, Madonna clearly applauded Sister Scuccia's effort.
The 56-year-old pop singer posted a recent publicity photo of herself sitting provocatively in a chair, juxtaposed with a photo of Sister Scuccia sitting demurely and facing away from the camera. "Sisters for Life!" Madonna wrote, adding the hashtag, "#touchedfortheveryfirsttime."
Sister Scuccia's defended her decision to cover a single so closely affiliated with sex in a recent interview.
"I chose it," she told Italian newspaper Avvenire last week, "with no intention to provoke or scandalize. Reading the text, without being influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the power of love to renew people. To rescue them from their past. And this is the way that I wanted to interpret it."
Billy Steinberg, who wrote the lyrics to Madonna's "Like a Virgin," confirmed that the song is about the power of love over a decade ago.
"I wasn't just trying to get that racy word 'virgin' in a lyric," he told the Los Angeles Times.
"I was saying... that I may not really be a virgin—I've been battered romantically and emotionally like many people—but I'm starting a new relationship and it just feels so good, it's healing all the wounds and making me feel like I've never done this before, because it's so much deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt."
Scuccia's "Like a Virgin" music video was posted to Vevo on Monday, and has received nearly two million hits.
