Madonna’s “Justify My Love” music video was banned by MTV in 1990.
Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, the black-and-white video depicts Madonna moving through a Paris hotel while encountering sexually suggestive situations and characters. MTV judged the imagery too explicit for its regular broadcast standards and refused to air it.
The controversy became part of the song’s publicity. Instead of relying on ordinary music-video rotation, Madonna and her record company released the video commercially on videocassette, making it one of the notable early examples of a music video sold directly to consumers.
The song itself was co-written by Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, and Ingrid Chavez, and it became Madonna’s ninth U.S. number-one single. The video is often confused with her earlier “Like a Prayer” controversy, but MTV’s objection to “Justify My Love” centered on sexual content rather than religious imagery.