Who is Still Alive From the Original Village People?

Lauren Novak Yesterday, 6:43 pm

CIRCA 1978: The Village People pose for a Casablanca Records publicity shot circa 1978 — Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The Village People will be performing during President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural activities next week, but which Village People? The disco group, which formed in 1977 and saw major success with songs like “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man,” has had so much turnover through the years, it’s difficult to know who’s still in the group, let alone which members are still alive.

Read on to find out which original members are still with us, and what they’ve been up to since they first donned those costumes.

Victor Willis (73)

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Willis is the only original member still in the Village People. He has performed as the lead singer and been a co-songwriter for just about all of their most famous hit songs, and often performs as a policeman or naval officer. He developed his singing skills in church and eventually joined the prestigious Negro Ensemble Company in New York City. He started appearing in musicals and plays, including the original Broadway production of The Wiz.

While he performs with the band now, he wasn’t there for the entirety. He left and returned several times in the ’80s, and the group never had a successful hit without him. Sadly, Willis struggled with drug addiction over the years before finally getting clean after going to rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic in 2007. He is currently married to a woman named Karen but was previously married to Phylicia Rashad, best known for playing Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show.

Felipe Rose (70)

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Rose often performed as “The Indian” and was a member of the group from its inception until 2017. He then launched a solo career and released a song called “Going Back to My Roots” in 2018.

Rose was originally asked to join the Village People after being discovered as a nightclub dancer; once he joined the group, he wanted to dress in Native American outfits to honor his father’s Mescalero Apache, Lakota and Cherokee roots. In 2014, he became an ordained minister to be able to marry fans. These days, he mainly focuses on cooking and has a YouTube channel showcasing many of his mother’s Puerto Rican recipes.

Alex Briley (77)

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When Briley joined the group, he was initially going to dress as an athlete, but later changed over to the G.I./sailor character. Not much is known about the star except that he was a Native New Yorker and, sadly, his brother, Johnathan Briley, passed away in the 9/11 terrorist attacks — Johnathan was one of the men who fell from the World Trade Center during the attacks while working as an audio engineer at Windows on the World.

David Hodo (77)

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Hodo joined the group as the construction worker character and performed with the Village People for several decades before retiring in 2013. In addition to performing with the group, he appeared in several Broadway shows and television shows, including Married … with Children, The Osbournes and The Love Boat.

Randy Jones (72)

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Jones was another on-again-off-again member of the group until he left for good in 1990. In 2007, he released his own album called Ticket to the World, and in 2017, he shared the song “Hard Times,” which reached number 42 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. He had a marriage ceremony to his longtime boyfriend, Will Grega, in 2004, and they wrote a book together called Out Sounds: The Gay and Lesbian Music Alternative.

Glenn Hughes (d. 2001 at the age of 50)

Glenn Hughes des 'Village People' sur le tournage du film 'Je te tiens, tu me tiens par la barbichette', le 18 octobre 1978

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Hughes was working as a toll booth collector in New York when he answered an ad looking for “macho” singers and dancers. He joined the group and donned his iconic mustache and leather outfits. He retired from the group in 1996 and started his own cabaret act. Tragically, he died in 2001 after a battle with lung cancer.

Fun fact: He was included on People‘s 1979 list of Most Beautiful People.

Since 2023, Victor Willis is the only original Village People member left in the group. The remaining members are Javier Perez, James Lee, J. J. Lippold, James Kwong and Nicholas Manelick.