Madonna surprises ‘Bar Mitzvah Boy’
Madonna had an extra special surprise for one of her biggest (and most famous) fans as her MDNA Tour rolled into Chicago this week when she singled out Shaun Sperling, best known as the “Bar Mitzvah Boy” after a 1992 video of him Vogue-ing his way into Jewish manhood went viral last month, as she performed “Like a Prayer.”
As seen in the exclusive footage from the Huffington Post, Madonna leans down from the stage with her microphone, allowing the now 33-year-old Sperling to sing a few lines from her 1989 classic.
Publicist Liz Rosenberg told HuffPost Gay Voices that the pop superstar was unaware of Sperling’s YouTube fame.
“Madonna never goes to that area of the stage to get people to sing along with her, but clearly she was being spiritually guided to the one person out of 20,000 who deserved to sing along,” Rosenberg said.
Regardless, the “Bar Mitzvah Boy” said the chance encounter with his idol left him feeling ecstatic.
“I am now even more inspired to continue paying forward the lessons that Madonna taught me 20 years ago of self-respect, love, individuality, acceptance of others and always striving to be a better human being,” he wrote on Facebook. “I feel incredibly grateful that my 13-year-old dreams are coming true, and most of all for the love and support that I have in my life.”
As Rosenberg notes, the Madge-ical moment was bashert, which is Yiddish for “meant to be.”