“I Will Survive” singer Gloria Gaynor revealed that the “biggest misconception” about her was that she was a feminist, which she repeatedly denied in a recent interview.
While speaking to Metro on Sunday, the 81-year-old singer was asked what the biggest misconception about her was after decades of fame. Gaynor remarked that she has had several people assume that she was a feminist even though she “loves men.”
“I’ve had people say that to me, ‘And since you’re a feminist…’ Erm, no. Not really. I love men. I grew up with five brothers, and I love men,” Gaynor said.
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She added, “I love men who know who they are and are strong enough to take their place but also strong enough to recognize a woman’s strengths and who are able to allow her to exercise those strengths and realize that we are to be partners and not opponents.”
Though “I Will Survive” has been used as an anthem for marginalized groups, Gaynor has described the song as a kind of universal statement for people who have gone through trauma.
“This is a timeless lyric,” Gaynor said in 2024. “I’m standing here [in 1978] relating to this song since I had a back brace on from a surgery I had just had. I’m relating it to the fact that my mother passed away a few years prior, something I never thought I’d survive. Everybody is going to relate every traumatic situation they’re going through with this song. Any situation they find seemingly insurmountable, they can relate.”
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She also associated the song with her return to faith and has rewritten the lyrics in the past to reflect that.
Gaynor told NPR in 2019: “When I read the lyrics, I realized the reason they’d been waiting for me to record that song was that God had given that song to them for them to set aside, waiting for him to get everything in order for me to meet up with them. And that song was ‘I Will Survive.’”
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