Donald Trump inauguration 2025: 10 things you never knew about Trump’s favourite band the Village People

The news that the famously camp Village People are to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration ball on Monday is as unlikely as hearing that the President-elect of the Dad-Dancing Society has won Strictly.

The band, which has a huge gay following, is hardly what you would expect from the anti-woke new incumbent of the White House.

And yet, The Donald has let it be known that their 1978 hit YMCA is his favourite single.

And after he adopted it for his Make America Great Again campaign during the election in November it topped the US charts.

So who are the Village People?

Here, David Leafe reveals ten extraordinary facts about the band that has hit the big time again nearly 50 years after its first incarnation...

1. They were originally the ‘Village Person’

The Village People were created by French composer and producer Jacques Morali, a gay man who had enjoyed several hits in Europe before moving to New York in 1977 to break into the American market.

Approached by struggling singer/actor Victor Willis, he hired him to sing the four tracks on an album called Village People, a nod to the gay community in New York’s Greenwich Village.

To maintain the pretence that Village People were an actual band, Morali added backing tracks from session singers.

Caught out when success saw the “group” invited to perform live in clubs around the Big Apple, he raced to find new members.

Since then, some 26 performers have donned the hard hats, leather jackets and other trademark outfits in over a dozen iterations of the band.

2. Eccentric criteria for selecting members

During a costume ball at a New York gay bar, Morali spotted Felipe Rose, the son of a Native American, who had come wearing a traditional chief’s headdress.

This gave Morali the idea of creating a group based around masculine sartorial stereotypes.

With Rose signed up to be the Native American and Victor Willis a traffic cop, Morali recruited for the other roles via a newspaper advert.

“Macho Types Wanted”, it read. “Must Dance And Have A Moustache.”

By the time auditions were complete, dancer Alex Briley was cast as the GI/Sailor, roller-skater David Hodo became the construction worker.

TV actor Randy Jones swaggered in as the cowboy and Glenn Hughes, a toll collector, became the leatherman/biker.

3. They weren’t as gay as everyone assumed

Despit their enduring popularity within the LGBTQ community, several of the group were straight, including Willis.

He would later marry Phylicia Rashad who played Clair Huxtable on the sitcom The Cosby Show.

Willis, who penned the lyrics to YMCA among other hits has since insisted that there were no gay undertones to lines about young men finding “many ways to have a good time”.

“I knew nothing about the ‘Y’ being a hangout for gays when I wrote the lyrics,” he’s said.

“When I say, ‘hang out with all the boys’ that is simply 1970s black slang for black guys hanging out together for sports, gambling or whatever.

“There’s nothing gay about that.”

Recollections have varied.

Randy Jones has described inspiring Morali to create the song by taking him to the New York YMCA.

There he introduced him to various gay pornography models who worked out at the Y.

“Those visits with me planted a seed in him, and that’s how he got the idea for YMCA — by literally going to the YMCA.”

4. The YMCA were not fans

Although the chorus celebrates how “it’s fun to stay at the YMCA”, the Young Men’s Christian Association was less than grateful for what appeared to be free advertising.

After it topped the charts in both the US and Europe, selling millions of copies worldwide, the organisation sued the Village People for copyright infringement in a case eventually settled out of court.

5. They left the U.S. Navy all at sea

The video for their 1979 hit In The Navy was filmed aboard an actual frigate, the USS Reasoner.

The deal was that the US Navy would get to use the song for free in recruitment adverts.

There were problems from the start.

One rating recalled Victor Willis arriving onboard with his hands in his pockets.

“The officer told him to remove his hands and, when he did, a big bag of pot fell on the deck,” they claimed.

Only after the video began airing did officials realise lines like “Where can you find pleasure?” being sung by a hairy-chested man in a leather jacket and harness might not be the message they wanted to send out.

Plans to use the song were quietly dropped.

6. They didn’t invent their signature moves

Randy Jones will be forever grateful to the group of young cheerleaders in the audience during one of their early TV recordings of YMCA.

“The first time we got to the chorus, we were clapping our hands above our heads. And the kids thought it looked like we were making a Y. So they automatically did the letters,” he recalled.

“We saw this and started doing letters with them.”

7. A new level in bad movie-making

Just as disco was being seen as old hat, they made a movie called Can’t Stop The Music.

A more accurate title might have been Can’t Draw An Audience.

It was such a flop that it inspired the setting up of the annual Golden Raspberry Awards, honouring the worst cinematic failures. At the first ceremony, Can’t Stop The Music won ‘Razzies’ for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay.

8. A surprising new fan base…

The Village People found unexpected success on the bar mitzvah circuit.

One commentator has described YMCA as “the single most important song to hit the religion since Hava Nagila (a folk song often sung at celebrations)“.

The fan joked: “We were under such pressure to become bankers, accountants and lawyers. They opened our eyes to other career possibilities: a cop, a builder, a flamboyant Indian…”

9. They had a tragic link with 9/11

Following the September 11 attacks in New York, much speculation surrounded the identity of the “Falling Man”, photographed as he fell to his death from the North Tower.

An investigation by American journalist Tom Junod suggested it was 43-year-old Jonathan Briley who worked in the building’s restaurant and was the brother of Village People’s Alex.

While Jonathan did indeed perish in the attacks, it’s almost impossible to prove he was the Falling Man.

10. Still causing outrage, 50 years on

Of the original line-up, only Willis remains with the group, and will perform YMCA at Donald Trump’s inaugural ball and rally.

That the gay anthem has been adopted by the MAGA movement has infuriated many in the LGBTQ community, with one post on the band’s Facebook page describing it as “‘a betrayal to the very people who have supported and celebrated your work for decades”.

But others have taken a more lighthearted view, as one fan depicted it as a perfect opportunity to “Make America Gay Again”.