She dances, she rubs her nose and declares facing the camera: “Hello, this is Mer-Donna, the mother of Jesus. I’m drunk. The cocaine is starting to take effect. Nobody touch me, otherwise I’ll call the police”. It’s April 2022, and this video instagram of Madonna leaves Internet users very wary. Beyond the oddity of the subject, there is above all the physical appearance of the pop star which challenges, with her skin as smooth as that of a baby, her long extensions, ultra blonde, almost white, and a boosted posterior à la Kim Kardashian, wrapped in a leather minishort… At 63, the interpreter of Like a Virgin decided to play the young and sexy influencer of 20 years. What arouse a bad buzz carabineer: “What’s going on with your face? Is it a mask or is it real? Absolutely disgusting…”, “I guess the elbows are the only parts of her that haven’t been filled with plastic”, “Please stop cosmetic surgery!”, “It’s sad that a self-proclaimed feminist has to touch up her face to pretend to be 20 years old”can we read among the comments.
His manager Guy Oseary may have tried to confiscate access to his account instagram, You’re wasting your breath. With its filters and its lascivious poses, the Madonna is freewheeling. Her eldest son, Rocco, not a great client of his mum’s escapades, recently confided that she only accepts guys under 30 as boyfriends. The sexagenarian has obviously decided to embark on the fiercest of fights against the most formidable of adversaries: time. But this confrontation does not scare her, she who, from childhood, understood that we had nothing for nothing. “If you want something, go get it”repeated his father Silvio Ciccone, a worker in Detroit at General Motors-Chrysler.
Madonna Pop Diva
My husbands, my toy boys, my lovers…
80 years : At the beginning of her career, she went out with the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (from 1982 to 1983) who died of AIDS in 1988. Then it will be a highly publicized marriage (from 1985 to 1989) with the sanguine Sean Penn. Jealous sickly, he hit Madonna in 1987, which sent her to the hospital. A year later, drunk, the bad boy sequesters her for nine hours on a chair, desperate in the face of his wife’s desire to leave him. He releases her in the morning. Madonna immediately files for divorce. End of the story.
90s: Free and open, she connects furtive relationships with men – Warren Beatty, Dennis Rodman, Tupac Shakur –, but also women – from Ingrid Casares (1992-1994) to Jenny Shimizu (1993-1994).
2000s : She marries Guy Ritchie, a British filmmaker ten years younger than her, with whom she will have Rocco. But marital happiness darkens as the Ciccone succumbs to the precepts of the Kabbalah. The marriage exploded when she applied to adopt David Banda in 2006. Two years later, the adoption was approved, as was her breakup with Guy.
Years 2010-2022: She launched the fashion for toy boys with the top Jesus Luz (2008-2010), the French dancer Brahim Zaibat (2010-2013), the Dutch choreographer of Moroccan origin Timor Steffens (2014), the Franco-Portuguese model Kevin Sampaio ( 2017-2019) and dancer Ahlamalik Williams. Who’s next?
Religion, sex, buzz From the start, she understood that scandal and transgression worked in the music business. And what better than to mix religion and sex to buzz? In 1987, she threw panties at the end of her shows. In 1989, the pope banned the clip Like a Prayer in which she kisses a black Christ. In 1992, it will be his great sex period with a book and a clip Eroticacensored by MTV. In 2006, on the Tower Confessions, she staged her own crucifixion with a crown of thorns on her head. Enough to stay rooted to the spot!
The adage will act like a mantra in the head of Louise Veronica Ciccone. She was 5 years old when her mother, Louise Fortin, died of breast cancer, leaving behind her siblings of six children under the aegis of a clueless and awkwardly authoritarian father. An absence that Madonna will often evoke in her songs. “Even today I have that last image of my dead mother in a coffin that haunts my nightmares”she said in 2011.
Introverted, complexed, but rather pretty and clever, the young girl finds in dancing an outlet for her discomfort. At the public high school in Rochester, her fighter’s temperament allowed her to acquire a scholarship for the faculty of Michigan in 1976. There, her talent and her abnegation impressed her dance teacher, Christopher Flynn. He is convinced: Madonna can conquer Broadway. The student dumps everything. Silvio, furious, cuts off his food.
A traumatic rape
In New York, in system D mode, the life of an artist is complicated to say the least. She set up a group with a certain Dan Gilroy who taught her the guitar, then became the drummer and singer of a band called Breakfast Club. At the time, the city was plagued by violence and a tragedy occurred: in 1979, a man armed with a knife forced her to perform oral sex on him, a rape she recounted in 1993 in a scene of Snake Eyesby Abel Ferrara: “I felt a horrible feeling of suffocation”. The rapist then drags her by the hair to the edge of the void, presses the knife to her throat and tells her that he is hesitating between cutting her throat and throwing her from the top of the building. “At that point, I would have done anything for him. He burst into tears, turned his back and walked away.”
After such a crime, other women would have collapsed. Not Madonna, whose determination will on the contrary increase tenfold. She struggles in the Big Apple? Direction France, in 1979, where she becomes the dancer and chorister of a certain Patrick Hernandez who is a hit with Born to Be Alive. What make him want to try his luck in the disco, but it does not work. Back to New York. She then turned to funk and signed in 1982 the title Everybodywhich will be noticed in the clubs.
In 1983, his first album included the hit holiday. We are now in 1985, Mado released Like a Virgin a year before and is on the bill of Desperately looking for Susan. It embodies the style of the time. It is believed that this success will last only a short time. Fake ! The story has been going on for forty years. Decades during which she will reinvent herself with important albums, epic shows, transgressions, scandals, husbands, lovers, toy boys.
She appears alternately brunette, platinum blonde, sex guru, kabbalist, fashion icon, Marilyn or Marlene Dietrich, cowgirl or British duchess, gothic or disco. The competition? She puts it in her pocket by daring a French kiss on stage with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. When Katy Perry or Lady Gaga emerge ten years later, everyone perceives that they carry within them something of Madonna, Gaga having downright plagiarized her melodies. And even at 60, the star does not want to let go, despite her tired athletic body which forced her to cancel her tour in 2019, the Madame X Tower. “Her career is over, she looks like an old fairground stripper”professed a mocking Elton John … It was in 2015.
Not enough to move her beyond measure because whether we make fun of her or belittle her, she is never as strong as in adversity. While she has just left her last toy boy to date, she has also instructed her staff to put together a cast of muscular guys under 30. As Silvio said: “If you want something, go get it.”
His children, his pride
Lourdes Leon Ciccone: Born in 1996, she is the daughter of ex-Madonna coach Carlos Leon. She speaks French and Spanish fluently, works in fashion and lives in Manhattan. She adores her mother, but criticizes her for wanting to control her.
Rocco Ritchie: Born in 2000, he is the son of Guy Ritchie. Not supporting mum’s delusions on the Internet, he took refuge with his father in London in 2016. Since 2018, he has been a painter under the name of Rhed and signs works influenced by Francis Bacon and Banksy. His mother sees in him the new Jean-Michel Basquiat…
David Banda: Born in 2005 in Malawi, David Banda was adopted by Madonna at 14 months. He maintains a close relationship with his mother and is very interested in fashion, he who sometimes appears in a dress, so gender fluidity. Something to make his mom love.
Mercy James: Born in 2006 in Malawi, the teenager lives with her mother and her two sisters, also adopted, the twins Esther and Stella born in 2013 in Malawi.
A biopic under his control
Like Elton John, Madonna wants to produce her biopic during her lifetime. Like a mausoleum to his glory? There is actually a bit of that. In the script, Madonna has called on a big name in the person of Diablo Cody, Oscar winner in 2008 for Juno. And to interpret it, it is Julia Garner (ozarkon netflix) who was elected. And guess who is going to film all of this? A certain Madonna…
Selective discography
1984: LIKE A VIRGIN
After a 1st album in 1983, this opus imposes it thanks to the singles Like a Virgin and Material Girl. In total, 21 million sales.
1989: LIKE A PRAYER
This is the album of maturity. On the program, Like a Prayer, which caused a scandal, and Express Yourself, which explored emerging house music.
1998: RAY OF LIGHT
She signs with the collab of William Orbit a techno-pop album which will mark.
2000: MUSIC
In collaboration with Mirwais, an electro-folk album considered one of his best. She appears there as a cowgirl.
2003: AMERICAN LIFE
Still with Mirwais, she publishes a personal opus which distances her from the material girl of her beginnings.
2005: CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR
A disco revival with nods to ABBA and Donna Summer. Bingo! The crowd follows in droves.
2008: HARD CANDY
She operates a more hip-hop turn with collaborators like Timbaland, Pharrell Williams or Justin Timberlake.
2019: MADAME X
An album influenced by Portugal, where it was recorded. Despite good reviews, it only sold 500,000 copies.
2022: FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE: 50 NUMBERS ONES
From Holyday to I Don’t Search Find, Madonna’s 50 number one songs, remixed. Released August 19.
See also: Mambo, mambo with Madonna in Cuba!
Sylvain Monier