President Donald Trump revealed Friday that First Lady Melania Trump “hates” that he loves dancing to “the gay national anthem” to close off his rallies and said that she begged him to stop on the 2024 campaign trail.

The 1978 disco hit “Y.M.C.A.” by The Village People, long associated with gay culture and coded camp performance, has been the defining soundtrack of the president’s political brand since 2016. The song was often played at the end of rallies and revived again during his recent campaign for the presidency. He even came up with his own dance specifically for the song.

On Friday, however, the president joked about his wife’s discomfort over his embrace of the track during a rare campaign-style appearance to voters at a conservative retirement community in Florida, coincidentally named The Villages.

“She hates when I dance, too, at the end,” he told the audience. “She hates when I dance to what’s sometimes referred to as the gay national anthem. You know that? She hates it.”

Crediting himself with the song finally hitting the top spot on the charts, he added, “You know, that song was No. 5, 32 years ago, and it went to No. 1, 32 years later. There’s never been anything like it. It never hit No. 1. It was No.5, 32 years ago. And it went No. 1 for months during the last months of the game.”

“We love that song,” he said of MAGA.

He continued: “But she goes, ‘Darling, please –’ you know she’s a very elegant woman – she goes, ‘Darling, please don’t dance. It’s not presidential.’ I said, ‘It may not be presidential, but I’m leading by 20 points in the polls or something.”

Contrary to Trump’s claim, upon release in 1978, the track reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., and it wasn’t until 46 years later, in 2024, that it climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart, where it sat for six weeks.

The First Lady, meanwhile, is not the only person to have opposed Trump’s use of the song. Village People frontman Victor Willis, who approved of its use at first, later issued a cease-and-desist letter in 2023. Although he has since reversed course and given the president his blessing.

And, in fitting form, closing his Florida speech on Friday, perhaps to Melania’s quiet dismay, Trump exited the stage to “Y.M.C.A.,” dance moves and all.

Watch above via CSPAN.

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