Obituaries

Victor Willis, Lead Singer of the Village People, Dies at 74

July 1, 2026

Victor Willis, a founding member of the Village People who sang and co-wrote their signature disco anthems "Y.M.C.A.," "Macho Man" and "In the Navy," died on Tuesday. He was 74.

His death was announced by his wife, Karen Huff-Willis, on his Facebook page: "It is with profound sadness that I must announce the death of my husband, Victor Willis. Victor passed away on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, as a result of a short but aggressive illness. The family requests privacy at this time of great loss."

Willis was at the forefront of the Village People during their brief, intense run at the top of the charts in the late 1970s. Their rise was aided by their camp costuming: Each member was dressed as a macho archetype, with Willis singing as a policeman, surrounded by a sailor, a construction worker and a leather-clad biker. The caricatures of masculinity combined with their flagship hit "Y.M.C.A.," which carried connotations of gay cruising, created the notion that the Village People were a gay group, an idea Willis rejected. The singer told Rolling Stone in 1979, "The group performs a masculine show. Gay people like us; straight people like us. But we're not a gay group"

Willis left the Village People in 1980, then stayed out of the spotlight for the next three decades, re-emerging when he was sober and had settled business disputes with Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, the producers who assembled the group. He performed with the Village People in the last years of his life, including at a 2025 rally for President Donald Trump, an appearance spurred by the president’s regularly shimmying along to "Y.M.C.A." at his political rallies.

Trump aside, "Y.M.C.A." had a lasting impact on American popular culture. The Library of Congress added the song to the National Recording Registry in 2020; the Grammy Hall of Fame inducted the record the following year.

Born in Texas on July 1, 1951, Willis was raised in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. He first started singing in the church of his Baptist preacher father, turning to R&B as a teenager; his early group, The Ballads, opened for The Temptations at the Fillmore Auditorium. Willis moved to New York, where he branched into acting and dance, appearing in The River Niger and the original Broadway production of The Wiz in 1976.

Morali, a French disco producer and composer, and his business partner, Belolo, recruited Willis to front the Village People, a group they conceived after seeing bartenders dressed as a cowboy and a Native American at a gay bar in the West Village. Originally hired to sing backing vocals on the project, Willis impressed Morali, leading him to promote the singer to frontman.

The Village People's eponymous debut had some modest success upon its 1977 release. "Macho Man" brought the group onto the charts in the summer of 1978, peaking at #25. In early '79, "Y.M.C.A." rose to #2; "In the Navy" went to #3 that spring. By the summer, however, there were signs that the group's popularity had peaked: "Go West," memorably covered in 1993 by the Pet Shop Boys, didn't crack the Top 40.

Willis took measures to separate himself from the group, recording the aptly titled Solo Man in 1979. Shortly afterward, he became embroiled in a copyright dispute with Morali and Belolo. Solo Man was shelved (until 2015) and Willis left the Village People on the eve of filming Can't Stop the Music, the fantastical 1980 musical that effectively brought their career to a halt.

Willis and Phylicia Ayers-Allen were married from 1978 to 1982; after their divorce, she famously played Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show under her new name, Phylicia Rashad.

Willis spent the following decades in the throes of addiction. After pleading guilty to cocaine possession in 2006, he finally achieved sobriety after a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic in 2007.

In 2012 Willis began a legal process that culminated in a 2015 jury verdict awarding him a 50% share of the copyrights to over a dozen Village People songs, including their biggest hits. In 2017, he settled with Belolo, allowing him to return to the Village People as the lead singer, fronting a group consisting of new members. The act released A Village People Christmas in 2018, but this late stage of the singer's career became dominated by the affiliation of “YMCA” with President Trump.

Willis told the BBC in 2020, "I don't endorse Trump; I've never endorsed Trump, nor have the Village People, but because of the copyright laws in the United States, he's able to play our music any time he wants to." Five years later, Willis and the Village People sang "Y.M.C.A." at a Trump rally, just before his second inauguration. On that occasion Willis said, "Let's give President Trump a chance, regardless of what you may have thought about him in the past; let's see what he's going to do moving forward, and if he does things to restrict LGBTQ rights, the Village People will be the first to speak out."

The Village People, as then constituted, did not speak out, however, and Willis continued the outfit’s association with the Trump administration, taking the group to India in May to sing "Y.M.C.A." and "Happy Birthday" to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Willis is survived by Huff-Willis, a lawyer and entertainment executive who married him in 2007.

(Homepage photo: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)