Credits

Album

Like A Virgin

The Immaculate Collection

Single

Video

The original video, directed by Mary Lambert, was shot in Venice, Italy and partly in New York. It shows two personas of Madonna, one dancing on a gondola who ends up with a man in a lion mask, and another running around in a wedding dress. It premiered on MTV in the fall of 1984 and became an instant success. There are also two videos from live performances, one from the Virgin Tour (directed by Danny Kleinmann, released in 1985) and one from the Blond Ambition Tour (directed by Alek Keshishian, released in 1991).
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Tour

Madonna performed Like A Virgin for the first time live on the very first MTV Video Music Awards in September 1984, before the actual release of the single. Dressed in a wedding dress, Madonna crawled on the floor, practically masturbating with the veil, causing an enormous controversy, marking Madonna's true arrival. On the 20th MTV Video Music Awards, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera paid tribute to that performance, before singing backup to Madonna's Hollywood.

A few months after her first VMA performance, Madonna sang the #1 hit on her very first Virgin Tour as one of the closing songs. She appeared on stage in a wedding dress again and flirted around with her dancers. She sang a verse of Michael Jackson's megahit 'Billie Jean' in the middle of the performance as both songs have a similar bassline.

On the Who's That Girl Tour Madonna sang a medley of Dress You Up, Material Girl and finally Like A Virgin, all in the same goofy outfit. During this last song, she danced around between her musicians and her backup singers, while she took off her outfit one by one until she was back in her black corset. As an interlude she sang a verse of 'I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)' (originally by The Four Tops). At the end, Madonna flirted with the young dancer, who was dressed up as her groom.

Only Madonna could top the controversial 1984 VMA performance. On the Blond Ambition Tour, the pop song became an erotic masterpiece with Eastern vibes. Madonna wore a golden Gaultier bustier, which would become her most well-known as well as notorious piece of clothing of her career. She performed on top of a red velvet bed, with beside it two male dancers with fake breasts, who were constantly touching and caressing her. As the song got more intensive and erotic, Madonna moved around faster and faster, eventually simulating masturbation on the bed. In Toronto, the police even intended to arrest her for this explicit performance.

As she couldn't perform it any sexier or more erotic than she did on her previous tours, Madonna turned the song into a parody for the Girlie Show. Dressed in a manly suit and top hat, Madonna performs Like A Virgin as it could've been done by Marlene Dietrich, with a german accent, making it Like A Wurgin. Her perfectly timed moves and her play with the Pierrot are hilarious. At the end of the performance, she sings a few lines of Marlene's 'Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)' from the 1930 movie The Blue Angel.
Ten years later, during a Tower Records in-store appearance to promote American Life, the crowd convinced her to sing the song again for the first time since, but she forgot (maybe on purpose) half of the lyrics and just laughed her way through.

After years of refusing to play this song on tour, Madonna performed it again on her Confessions Tour. During the Equestrian part of the show, she asks the crowd "Are you ready to ride with me?" as she climbs on top of a mechanical saddle and shows off her acrobacy skills while pole dancing. Contrary to the previous performances, this version resembles the album version, though spiced up by Stuart. She gives a whole new meaning to "I made it through the wilderness" when the video screens show scenes of horse accidents and x-rays of broken bones, with an obvious wink to her own horse accident in the summer of 2005.