Reprise | Madonna Badger, Ad Executive, Survivor

Kerry McCoy will speak with New York advertising executive Madonna Badger, creator of the We Are #WomenNotObjects ad that debuted at Cannes Film Festival and has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube. Badger left the advertising industry for more than a year after a tragic house fire on Christmas morning that claimed the lives of her three young daughters and both her parents. After the tragedy, Badger spent a few months in psychiatric hospitals for manic depression and suicidal ideation. Badger contacted her college roommate, Kate Askew of Little Rock, for refuge. During that year of recuperation, Badger began healing from the immense pain of losing so many loved ones at once. Assisted by the Askew family, Helen Porter, one of the founders of the Psychiatric Research Institute at the University of Arkansas and Dr. Richard Smith, director of the Institute and Institute staff, Badger recovered enough to return to New York. Before reestablishing her work routine, she accompanied another friend from Arkansas to an orphanage in Thailand, where she found additional healing through the stories and love of the orphaned girls there. Badger wrote in Vogue Magazine, “It’s never going to be easy. The pain is just so huge that sometimes it feels like a prison cell. But trying really hard to not feel sorry for myself makes me feel good. Being of service helps the pain to go away, if only for a little while, and giving and receiving love makes me feel good. Basically, I go to wherever the light is, because anything else is darkness, and it can be a deeply black darkness.” Her tragic, yet inspirational story, her business and her volunteer work and more will be discussed during the hour-long interview.