Madonna upsets fans after thanking Margaret Thatcher for being a fellow 'rebel heart'

Madonna praised Margaret Thatcher over Instagram today (21 April), much to the dismay of many of her fans. The singer deleted the post a few minutes later because of the backlash.

The 56-year-old uploaded an image of Baroness Thatcher accompanied by a quote first spoken by the Conservative politician herself, which read: "If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and would achieve nothing."

She then captioned the image saying: "Thank you, Margaret Thatcher!

The singer's most recent album is entitled Rebel Heart and this post was undoubtedly intended to be a small piece of social media-based promotion.

Madonna also caused controversy when promoting her new record back in January, when she used photoshopped images of icons such as Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela, describing those people as 'rebel hearts' also. The posts depicted those mentioned with their heads entangled in black cord, like Madonna's head in the original artwork, and the imagery went on to cause offence among some members of the public.

The Hung Up hitmaker later apologised via Facebook stating: "I'm sorry. I'm not comparing myself to anyone. This is neither a crime or an insult or racist! I also did it with Michael Jackson and Frida Kahlo and Marilyn Monroe. I'm saying they are Rebel Hearts too."

This Instagram post isn't the first time that Madonna has been linked to politics. In 2008 she publicly backed Barack Obama in his run for presidency and received a lot of praise from gay fans for suggesting at a LGBT rights rally that: "If we can elect an African-American as president, we can support gay marriage!"

Which is why her support of late Lady Thatcher seems a little out of character. The former Prime Minister was opposed to LGBT rights during her time in office, even passing a Local Government Act in 1988 that banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools, as well as raising awareness of it in an education environment.