Wayne Rooney wasn't sitting on the fence when it came to his thoughts on the FIFA World Cup final halftime show, but Madonna could be about to have the last laugh18:57, 20 Jul 2026It’s with VAR-like anticipation that we wait to discover who might suffer most from the wrath of Wayne Rooney.‌“I thought it was c**p,” declared the former England striker turned Simon Cowell of the pundit box, after watching the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina delayed for eleven excruciating minutes by a half-time show featuring Shakira, Burna Boy, K-pop superstars BTS and the stars of Sesame Street . His favourite part? “When it was finished.”‌And he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t tell pop star from Muppet. “This is like a bad trip,” Liam Gallagher wrote on X amid a polarised reaction to the charity show online, while Count Binface tipped Rooney as the next commentator for Eurovision.‌Who most riled the Roons? Justin Bieber playing a vibe-killing acoustic ballad in half a jumper? BTS over-estimating the crossover appeal of sweet, teen-friendly pop and Argentinian football? Show curator Chris Martin and Coldplay closing the show surrounded by a children’s choir, performing a massive sing-along anthem that nobody knew?Our money’s certainly not on Madonna, the Teflon Queen of Pop. Not just because she’d already performed her remix of Music and Danceteria alongside Brazilian soccer stars Ronaldo and Ronaldinho and left the field before the Cookie Monster showed up.‌Not just because her new album Confessions II has hit Number One in 20 countries worldwide. But because, over four decades plagued with traumas and setbacks, she’s repeatedly proven herself the ultimate pop survivor.Every sling and arrow the world has thrown at her for over 40 years, Madonna has Madgesterially overcome. Early in her career she suffered sexual assault, an MTV ban over the bisexual orgy in the _Justify My Love_video and the threat of arrest in Canada for simulating masturbation with a crucifix on her notorious Blonde Ambition tour in 1990. Yet her rise to the very peak of the pop sphere only became more stratospheric for every controversy she courted.She has rattled the cassocks of several popes. Pope John Paul II objected to the burning crosses, stigmata and interracial romance with a Jesus-like figure in the Like a Prayer video and described the Blonde Ambition tour as “one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity”, and encouraged Italian fans to boycott her. In 2006, the Vatican of Pope Benedict XVI called for Madonna’s excommunication, describing the mock crucifixion on her Confessions tour as blasphemous. But she’s shaken off condemnation from the highest religious seats like holy water off a duck’s back.‌More recently, she shocked the VMA Awards 2003 by snogging Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, cougared Drake in similar fashion at Coachella 2015, fell off the stage at the Brits 2015 and had to reverse-autotune her pancake-flat 2019 performance at Eurovision before putting it on YouTube. And yet, as this month’s Confessions II continues a lifelong streak of chart-topping albums, none of it has made the slightest dent on her standing.Madonna is simply pop’s most prominent and impervious untouchable. The advances she pioneered for pop and dance music, the taboos she broke forever around sexuality and religion and the giant leaps she made in terms of female expression and business autonomy have all made her an institutional icon.‌When Miley twerks, Sabrina swears or Taylor re-records another kiss-off to the music industry patriarchy, they’re stepping in Madonna’s deep footprints.And that’s not to mention a historic catalogue of hits that, in a digital age when even the biggest pop smash might go virtually unnoticed by the masses, have made her Queen of Pop throne unassailable. In short, she’s done so much for so many that she’s beyond failure - make her Prime Minister and she might even last more than two years.Certainly the screeching critical boot of Wayne Rooney won’t bring her down; she’ll stay at the top until at least Roy Keane comes against her.Article continues belowLike this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.