NBC Won't Air Madonna on Cross
By Lorenza Muñoz, Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2006

Bowing to pressure from Christian advocacy groups, NBC has decided to pull a controversial mock crucifixion scene from next month's broadcast of a Madonna concert taped last summer.

Television viewers will not see the segment in which Madonna is hanging from a cross, wearing a crown of thorns on her head and singing her 1980s hit "Live to Tell."

The 'Live to Tell' song has been revised for NBC's broadcast special," the network said in a statement. The Nov. 22 two-hour broadcast was taped during the singer's "Confessions" concert at London's Wembley Stadium.

The scene was widely criticized by Christian institutions around the world, including the Church of England, the Vatican, the Russian Orthodox Church and individual Christian groups, which saw her use of the cross as offensive and blasphemous. the rest