{"id":773324,"date":"2026-07-01T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773324\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T13:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T13:11:09","slug":"village-people-lead-singer-victor-willis-dead-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773324\/","title":{"rendered":"Village People lead singer Victor Willis dead at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 1 minute<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p>Village People lead singer Victor Willis, co-writer of 1970s-era disco hits including Y.M.C.A. and Macho Man, has died at 74.  <\/p>\n<p>A post on the group&#8217;s official Facebook page announced the entertainer&#8217;s death. He was born in Dallas on July 1, 1951.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are profoundly sad to announce the death of VICTOR WILLIS, lead singer of Village People,&#8221; the post said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Victor passed on Tuesday &#8230; of a short but aggressive illness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Willis\u2019s wife, Karen-Huff Willis, posted on the musician&#8217;s Facebook page on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is with profound sadness that I must announce the death of my husband \u2026,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe family request privacy at this time of great loss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Willis co-founded the group along with Jacques Morali and  Henri Belolo, and co-wrote other hits including In the Navy and Go West.<\/p>\n<p>Willis performed while dressed as a police or naval officer, with other band members also wearing clothes associated with archetypical macho characters.<\/p>\n<p> The six-member band has become associated with U.S. President Donald Trump in recent years, performing Y.M.C.A. at his pre-inauguration rally in January 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 1 minute The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-773324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773324","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=773324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}