Madonna Badger Finds New Purpose With 'Women Not Objects' Campaign Years After Tragic House Fire
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- It was the most devastating tragedy a mother can imagine.
On Christmas Day in 2011, fire ravaged Madonna Badger's home in Stamford, Connecticut.
Her three little girls -- 9-year-old Lily, and 7-year-old twins Sarah and Grace -- became trapped. The divorced mom tried, but couldn't save her children. Her parents also died in the inferno.
Everyone she loved was gone in an instant.
"There was no one left," Badger told CBS2's Mary Calvi. "I wanted to die."
She even contemplated the unthinkable.
"I was afraid of killing myself because I thought, 'Oh my god, I may not find them,' or 'I may not see them,'" Badger said. "No one knew what to do with me, and everybody was so afraid of what I would do."
She was put into four different psychiatric hospitals until her roommate from college came for her.
"It was like breaking out of jail, I remember calling her on the phone and just saying, 'I can't do this anymore,'" Badger said. "My hair was falling out, I was grey."
Today, Badger runs a successful advertising firm on Fifth Avenue.
"I'm here and I'm going to do something positive with the time I that I'm here," Badger said.
And she is.
Badger said her daughters' memories are inspiring her to change how the world views women, with a powerful new movement that's gone viral.
"When I became a mom that was it, that was the number one thing in my life," Badger said. "If my little girls were here, I would be mortified at what they were seeing and what they were having to go through."
She is calling on the advertising industry as a whole to stop using images that objectify women. The viral videos for the #WomenNotObjects campaign has exploded on social media.
CLICK HERE TO SEE ONE OF THE VIDEOS.
"It's about a human change, it's about saying I'm not OK with this anymore. And there's gotta be a better way. I know there's a better way, I know there's a smarter way and that's what we're really asking for," Badger said.
Zero tolerance is what she's calling for and with the huge success of the viral video campaign, there's no doubt it's making an impact.
