{"id":773253,"date":"2026-07-01T12:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773253\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:30:11","slug":"village-people-frontman-victor-willis-dead-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773253\/","title":{"rendered":"Village People Frontman Victor Willis Dead at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Village People Victor Willis
\n Dead At 74 After Aggressive Illness<\/p>\n

\n Published
\n July 1, 2026
\n 3:29 AM PDT
\n |
\n Updated
\n July 1, 2026
\n 5:24 AM PDT\n <\/p>\n

Victor Willis<\/a> — the legendary singer for the ultra-popular 1970’s disco band “Village People” — has died.<\/p>\n

In a social media post<\/a>, the music group said Willis passed away Monday after “a short but aggressive illness.” His exact cause of death was not revealed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Victor<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Willis was the theatrical frontman for “Village People,” who co-wrote the band’s most famous songs, such as “YMCA,” “Macho Man,” “Go West” and “In The Navy.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the ’70’s, the group shot to stardom while living up to their “Macho Man” personas, wearing policeman and naval officer outfits.<\/p>\n

In 1980, Willis split from the band and got into a legal battle with the other members over copyright issues involving the songs he penned.<\/p>\n

But, in 2017, Willis returned to Village People and even cranked out “YMCA” at a pre-inauguration rally for President Trump in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Willis was 74.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Village People Victor Willis Dead At 74 After Aggressive Illness Published July 1, 2026 3:29 AM PDT |…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-773253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}