Madonna to Daughter: I'm Not Gay

By Todd Peterson

03/07/2006 at 08:20 AM EST

Madonna's steamy kiss with Britney Spears during the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards might have raised some eyebrows around the world, but it left one little girl a bit confused.

The Material Mom tells Out magazine that her 9-year-old daughter, Lourdes, asked whether her mom is gay because she kissed another woman, the Associated Press reports.

"(Lourdes) is really obsessed with who is gay," Madonna tells Out magazine. "And she even asked, 'Mom, you know they say that you are gay?' And I'm, 'Oh, do they? Why?' And she says, 'Because you kissed Britney Spears.'"

"I said, 'No, it just means I kissed Britney Spears. I am the mommy pop star and she is the baby pop star. And I am kissing her to pass my energy on to her,'" Madonna says she told her daughter.

The round of tonsil-hockey, which took place during her performance of "Like a Virgin" at the awards show, has been used as a barometer of VMA excess ever since.

In the interview with Out, which appears in the April issue, Madonna says Lourdes often asks, "'Mom, do you want me to out who the gay men are?' And I say, 'Okay, but I think I already know.'"

Madonna also touches on her feud with Elton John, who has accused her of lip-synching.

"He seems to be angry," she says. "I seem to have become a target. It's not very gentlemanly or gracious." But, she added, John did send her a letter of apology prior to his wedding to filmmaker David Furnish in December.