How old is Madonna now in a year. Madonna - biography and personal life

The show business star Madonna is known all over the world. During her almost 40-year career, she released many hits and became the founder of a special trend in musical culture. Her provocative style is copied, criticized, enthusiastically praised, but not forgotten. She leaves no one indifferent. At the same time, Madonna’s full, real name is known only to her loyal fans. She was able to make her pseudonym a brand that no longer stands for just a person, but an entire social phenomenon.

Early years

The future pop star was born on August 16, 1958 in Michigan large family, she was the 3rd child of six. The girl's mother was of French-Canadian origin, her father was Italian. This is probably where Madonna’s fiery temperament originates. After graduating from school, the girl entered the University of Michigan, to the choreography department; she studied dancing and ballet for many years. At that time, Madonna’s real name, inherited from her mother, was completely unknown, and the girl dreamed of fame. In 1978, she moved to New York and enrolled in a dance class with the famous Alvin Ailey. She works part-time as a model, sings in different groups, and her creative potential is bursting to the surface.

The beginning of a musical career

Together with a group of New York musicians, Madonna creates the Emmy group, which writes and performs fashionable music for discos and nightclubs. Producers pay attention to the group and the soloist. And in 1982, Madonna signed a contract with the Sire Records label and released her debut single, Everybody. The singer's first album appears the following year, and the song Holiday enters the American and European charts. From the very beginning of her career, Madonna impressed with her energy, original stage performances and striking appearance.

Nickname

Even after she started dancing, Madonna started thinking about her stage name. From her parents she received a sonorous and difficult name- Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone and therefore she had plenty to choose from for her pseudonym. She settled on the first part of her real name, especially since the name Madonna was memorable and, combined with the appearance and behavior of the singer, provocative. And it was precisely on shockingness that the aspiring performer relied. From her first steps on stage, Madonna, whose hits were still ahead, worked under her shortened name and made it famous in a few years.

Creative path

Already the first album made Madonna popular. The singer worked a lot, always thought out the set design and choreography of her performances to the smallest detail, and worked on her appearance. A natural brunette with appetizing curves, she found herself dressed as a blonde with bright makeup and sexy outfits.

From the very beginning of her career, the singer worked very hard, she changed several producers and labels, persistently striving to the top. The first Madonna album, despite the fact that it entered the charts, was still a common occurrence in pop music. But the 1984 album Like a Virgin was a real event. It sold millions of copies.

Madonna's real name no longer mattered; she became a star, and everyone knew her by her stage name. In 1990, the singer made her first world tour, which was accompanied by resounding success. Madonna not only performs fashionable songs, she sets a new standard for shows; her concerts are a whole performance, with a lot of costumes, scenery, and dancers.

At the end of the 90s, a real rain of awards poured down on Madonna, she received all possible music prizes, her records sold millions of copies, tickets for concerts anywhere in the world were sold out in a few hours.

Her stage path was often associated with scandals and provocations; the star always fueled her special image with various antics on stage and off. But she is also constantly in musical search; Madonna’s compositions are always the most advanced edge of pop music.

To date, the singer has released 13 albums, created 10 concert programs, with which she has traveled around the globe several times. Madonna, whose age is increasingly becoming the subject of discussion in the media and gossip, is not going to give up her position, despite the younger generations of competitors.

Outstanding Works

During her life, Madonna, whose hits have repeatedly gone multi-platinum, has released hundreds of songs. Experts and fans argue a lot about her creative heritage and which works are considered the best. Her most famous songs were:

• Material Girl. A real calling card of the singer, which defined her style for many years, this song with a wonderful video a la Marilyn Monroe is a classic of world pop music.
• Cherish. The 1988 song and the black-and-white video for it became a certain milestone for Madonna, in which she appeared in the image of an ordinary American girl.
• Vogue. The perfect 80's dance song, with a wonderful video from David Fincher, was Madonna's first step into the 90's.
• Rain. An elegant and sophisticated song from the provocative album Erotica, it became one of the best “slow” songs of the decade. And Mark Romanek's magnificent video marked the beginning of a new video aesthetic in the 90s.
• Hung Up. The song from the early 2000s was further proof that Madonna is the queen of the dance-pop scene. The fiery melody and bright vocals made the composition a hit in discos all over the world.
• Frozen. The 1998 ballad proved that Madonna, whose biography is connected with dance music, not only knows how to put on a show, but also sings beautifully. The exquisite video for the song from Chris Cunningham received several awards and recognition from fans.

Film work

Throughout her career, Madonna, whose biography is full of creative experiments, has repeatedly made attempts to make a career as a film actress. She has 13 films to her credit, in which she played both episodic and leading roles. Critics do not rate Madonna's talent as a dramatic actress very highly. However, roles in the films “Body as Evidence”, “Evita”, “Best Friend” and “Swept Away” showed that she is still a good actress.

Personal life

Throughout her career, Madonna's personal life has attracted the attention of the public and the press. The singer was officially married twice. Her first husband was actor Sean Penn. The second is the director. In addition, she has a huge number of novels to her credit. For several years, media attention was focused on her relationship with dancer Brahim Zeiba, who is 29 years younger than the singer. The affair ended in separation, and today Madonna is credited with a new relationship.

Scandals

Some journalists jokingly say that Madonna's real name is Lady Scandal. She is ready to create a stir from scratch. At one of the concerts in Istanbul, she decided to please her fans and exposed her breasts. Stripping is generally the pop star's favorite trick. At the 2003 MTV Awards, Madonna passionately kissed Britney Spears, which caused a huge stir. Later she repeated this trick with other girls. More than once, the singer’s songs became the reason for her accusations of anti-Semitism, inciting hatred towards the church, and it got to the point that the Pope was called upon to excommunicate her from the church.

Children

The pop diva also attracts no less attention from the press. She has four children: daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon (father Carlos Leon), son Rocco (father Guy Ritchie), as well as two adopted children from Malawi: daughter Mercy Dane and son David Banda Mwale .

Madonna's children grow up under the supervision of nannies, because their mother is actively involved in her career. The eldest daughter has already grown up and is quite successfully building a modeling career. The singer sued Guy Ritchie for custody of her son for a long time and lost the case. For some time, Rocco lived with his father in London, but then returned to his famous mother.

Madonna (born 1958) is an American superstar, she is rightfully considered the queen of pop music, she has made an invaluable contribution to world culture. She is an eccentric and shocking, persistent, hardworking singer and talented actress.

How many children does Madonna have?

The singer Madonna has four children, two of her own are older children, and two younger adopted ones. The second official ex-husband, famous director Guy Ritchie, firmly believes that she is a very good mother, she loves her children, but raises them in strictness. They were forbidden to watch TV, and much attention was paid to reading; it is worth noting that Madonna herself successfully composed fairy tales. She respects the freedom of her children and gives them independence, for example, the eldest daughter - in creating her own. Despite numerous breaks with men, the children of the very busy Madonna always remained with her, in her family, and she firmly defended this right in court.

Madonna's own children

So at what age did Madonna give birth to her children? Madonna gave birth to her first daughter, Lourdes, in 1996, when she was 38 years old, from Cuban athlete Carlos Leon, he was her boyfriend. Lourdes Leon is now an adult. She and her mother still practice the teachings of Kabbalah and are also partners in general business- They produce their own clothing line.

In 1998, the singer met the British, talented and famous director Guy Ritchie at a reception with Sting. It was he who greatly influenced the personal life of Madonna and her future children, becoming her legal second and last husband. Having moved to her husband, she enjoyed living at home and became acquainted with the new country and its traditions. In 2000, baby Rocco was born. Currently, he is actively interested in breakdancing and even managed to perform as a dancer at the concert of Madona’s mother.

In 2006, Madonna and Guy Ritchie gave birth to a black boy, David Banda, from a poor African family in Malawi, when he was only 13 months old. He loved his adoptive parents very much and was very worried about their divorce. Not long ago he had a meeting with his biological father Johan Banda, and they even had a friendly conversation for about 3 hours.

The fourth child in Madonna's family was Mercy James. In 2009, she, like David, was taken from the Malawi orphanage. Her father, James Kambewa, makes his appearance at times. He either wants to meet Mercy or asks for her photo. Madonna constantly refuses him, since at present his paternity in relation to Mercy has not been proven.

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Biography, life story of Madonna

Madonna Louise Ciccone (stage name Madonna) is an American singer and actress.

Childhood

Madonna was born on August 16, 1958 in Rochester, Michigan, USA. Her family lived in Pontiac, as Michigan was known at the time, but the decision to open up to the world came to her when they visited her grandmother in Bay City. Madonna was named Madonna Louise Ciccone, but her family called her "Little Nonnie." When she was just five years old, her mother died of breast cancer. According to Madonna, “One of the hardest things I've faced in life was the death of my mother and I definitely haven't come to terms with that day.”. Madonna learned early to be strong and independent, but she always remembered her mother's courage: “She tried to hide her fear deep inside herself so that we wouldn’t know - she never complained.”.

After the death of his mother, the Ciccone family fell apart. Madonna and her brothers were sent to various relatives, and a couple of years later, to Madonna’s horror, her father Tony married their housekeeper Joan Gustafson, a guardian of strict order. The father forced the children to call her mother, but Madonna found it extremely difficult to do this. In fact, she never called her mother. Madonna was the oldest of eight children, so it was on her shoulders that the greatest burden of responsibility was placed. Madonna recalled: “As the oldest child in the family, I felt like my entire youth was spent caring for children. How I wanted to escape from all this then... I was the most typical Cinderella.”. Madonna said about her father: “If we didn’t have schoolwork, he would give us homework—he was extremely adamant about forcing us to be useful.”. And also: “But if he weren’t so strict, I wouldn’t be who I am now.”.

When Madonna was little, she loved to sing along to songs on the radio while she helped with housework. She recalled: “There was always music playing in our house - either gramophone records, or the radio, or someone humming in the shower.”. Soon, her father wanted her to take piano lessons, since most of her family played musical instruments, and her father was really obsessed with it. But this was not destined to come true - Madonna was her father’s favorite and persuaded him to let her take dance lessons instead of the piano.

CONTINUED BELOW

Madonna was 12 years old when she entered the local Catholic high school. Tyranny reigned in the school: “You’ll get hit on the butt with a stapler if you don’t listen.”. But she also took classes that were of great service - tap dancing, jazz dancing and gymnastics. And here she revealed to the world the sociable Madonna, who until now had only been seen in the family. “I wanted to do everything and everyone told me that I can’t, I can’t wear makeup, I can’t wear tights, I can’t cut my hair, I can’t go on dates, I can’t even go to the movies with friends.”. She attracted attention for wearing fancy socks and was filmed in a friends home movie with a fried egg on her belly. She was also noticed when she participated in a local talent competition, dancing in a bikini with body paint to the music of The Who.

As mentioned earlier, she wanted to do everything that she was forbidden to do. She turned her uniform skirt into a miniskirt, ran to the bathroom to put on makeup and put on tights. She flirted all the time. But when she wasn't flirting, she devoted herself entirely to her studies. Madonna recalled: “I tried so hard to study at school because my father rewarded us if we got straight A’s in our diaries. I wasn't as interested in studying as I was in wanting to save a lot of money with the 25 cents my dad gave us.". It's no surprise that Madonna shone in school theater, where she played leading roles in productions. After high school, she took dance classes at the University of Michigan. Her teacher was Chris Flynn. As she recalled: “I truly loved him. He was my mentor, my father, my imaginary lover, everything.".

Youth

Almost immediately after the University of Michigan, Madonna decided to go to New York to fulfill all her dreams. Everyone was against this idea, but her dance teacher said "Drive" and, fortunately for us, she went. So she was finally in New York, standing in the middle of Times Square (upon arriving in the city she asked the taxi driver to take her to the middle of everything) with $35 in her pocket, a bag full of tights and dance boots in one armpit and big doll in another. Madonna recalled: “When I arrived in New York, I flew on an airplane for the first time, drove a taxi for the first time, in general, did everything for the first time. And I arrived there with 35 dollars in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I've ever done. My goal was to conquer the city and I felt that I would have to". And also: “Even though I quickly got used to New York, I was really lonely.”.

“I could take anything in a taxi wherever I went. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, wiped away my tears and said, “I will do it - I have to do it, there is no other way.”. This was the beginning of Madonna's difficult times. She lived in a terrible house - there was no money for a better house. She recalled: “When my father first visited me, he was stunned. Cockroaches were crawling everywhere. There were drunks lying around in the corridor and everything smelled of spoiled beer.”. Then she won a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, where she spent two years working hard during the day and even harder at night without losing her job at the fast food restaurant where she worked part-time.

She also occasionally attended the Blue Froggie Club, where she met Steve Bray. He was a talented musician, but his relationship with Madonna was more physical than that. A little later, Madonna realized that the path to the top for her was not the completion of pure modern dance. It was not the competition that hindered her, but the lack of prospects. There were so many people trying for so few professions. She auditioned for theater and musical roles and achieved that she was taken to Paris to take part in a revue, standing behind Patrick Hernade. Hernade's administration realized that they had gotten their hands on something valuable, but they were too slow - when she asked for an increase in her fee, they refused. So, goodbye Paris and hello New York.

The desire to sing

Madonna returned to New York with a burning desire to succeed in the music industry. She returned to live with her old boyfriend, Dan Gilroy. He and a couple of friends he met at dance school formed The Breakfast Band and needed a drummer - just for Madonna. Then she persuaded Dan to write a couple of songs for her as the singer of the group.

After a few months of being in the group, she realized they were going nowhere and formed her own group with herself as main singer. Over the next few months, they performed constantly in dubious New York clubs so that their name would become known in musical circles. It wasn't easy. Her group went through many changes in its composition and name. Clubs were more interested in punk and new wave, but Madonna pored over her goal. She was invited to model a little and take part in a short (one-hour) art film, A Certain Sacrifice.

Madonna finally landed a deal with Gotham Records, earning $100 in a week. Steve Bray went with her as drummer and songwriter. She continued to persist and finally landed a deal with Sire Records for just $5,000 and released her first single, Everybody. When it was first released to radio, many fans confused Madonna with the African-American disco diva. Music companies also didn't put Madonna's photo on the cover - they wanted people to think she was black in order to sell more records. The song Everybody sold over 250,000 copies and peaked at number three on the charts. John Jellybean Benitez found Madonna the song Holiday, which became an immediate hit, but she won first place with Borderline. There were rumors that her voice had been mechanically altered to sound like a girl's. Her first album, Madonna, released in 1983, received a huge reception and won the hearts of millions of fans, as well as invitations to star in films.

Success

Madonna not only set the tone for music style, she also created a new fashion. In the Lucky Star music video, she showed off her Boy Toy look. Madonna's style was so popular that world famous lingerie store Fredericks of Hollywood reported a 40% increase in sales, which they attributed to the Down to Earth Girl look.

Never one to miss an opportunity to make a quick buck, Madonna sets up her own label, Wazoo. Among other things, Wazoo produced rubber bracelets and Boy Toy belt buckles. It wasn't long before millions of female fans around the world snapped up these rags of their No. 1 pop heroine. But it wasn't just the clothes that raised Madonna's sex reputation. Her music was about to take a turn in the other direction. New album Like A Virgin made Madonna popular and soon everyone at home had their own disc with the album.

It instantly achieved triple platinum status on the American charts. Interestingly, Madonna's first album was still popular on the charts. 1985 was a very busy year for Madonna. The Material Girl video was released on February 1st, the Vision Quest film was released on the 15th, and the Desperately Seeking Susan film was released on March 29th. Her role in Desperately Seeking Susan added a significant dimension to her character. Madonna's singles Material Girl and Crazy For You were in the top five. Crazy For You won Madonna her first Grammy. Madonna's first big tour (she traveled all over America) was named after her album The Virgin Tour (1985).

Love

From small places to packed stadiums – it was a matter of a couple of months. While she was filming Material Girl, she met . And after the phrase "I wouldn't want to be Mr. Madonna anyway", she married him. Madonna recalled: “We were jumping on my bed, doing our usual morning ritual, and suddenly this look appears... I suddenly understand what he is thinking about”.

“I said, no matter what you think, I’ll say yes!”. This was his chance and he took it. On August 16, 1985, they got married at the Malibu media circus, 13 helicopters with paparazzi flew in a circle during the ceremony, and the groom tried to beat up those photographers who were sitting in the bushes. Madonna recalled: “I didn’t think that I would get married with 13 helicopters above my head, it all turned into some kind of circus. At first I was outraged, but then I laughed.".

Incredible popularity

Since 1985, Madonna has been known as a person who can do everything: she is a singer, an actress, a composer, a stage director, and an official. Madonna was successful everywhere. She broke all records on every possible radio broadcast, video, sales and box office record, with more than 29 of her singles in the top ten, 11 of which were in 1st place. This is a world record! Take A Bow was at number one for 7 weeks, breaking the previous record of Madonna's hit Like A Virgin, which held number one for 6 weeks.

Madonna's No. 1 and No. 2 singles stayed at the top of the charts for 40 weeks - almost a full year of non-stop hits! Every studio album that contained her songs was in the top 15. All but one were in the top ten, and seven of them were in the top five. Madonna's international album sales are estimated at 120,000,000. Besides the main thing - music, to the unparalleled success of Madonna - she has more videos and roles than any artist in the history of MTV. Having been awarded many times for these videos, Madonna made a significant contribution to the video art model as her endless musical tours, which combined music, stagecraft, performance and dazzling charisma, filled stadiums for the next three weeks.

These huge breakthroughs mean huge amounts of money, which is why Madonna is the richest woman in the world, followed by Oprah Winfrey. At the beginning of the 2000s, Madonna earned $13,000,000 a year. All the upcoming albums, singles, videos and films kept Madonna on the crest of a wave.

As if she hadn't been busy before. Madonna gave the world another piece of joy in September 2000. No, not another child. Madonna devoted this time to Music, her first full album since Ray of Light, which won a Grammy. It was, of course, a hit, but one that no one expected. Music entered first place in the sales charts, and not only in the United States, but also in 22 other countries, such as in Madonna's new home - England. It sold 420,000 copies in the first week alone, in the US alone. Music was Madonna's first album to hold the top position.

Throughout her hectic career, Madonna has released more than ten albums, starred in more than ten films and written (yes, she is also a writer) seven books. Madonna is a person who incredibly combines caring for her family and friends, and an incredible career, and social life, and charity. Her achievements are truly amazing. Many journalists claim that all people are divided into two types: those who love Madonna and those who hate her. That's the only way. There are no and cannot be indifferent to its activities.

Personal

Madonna, an incredibly beautiful and sexy woman, had many men, all of them completely handsome. However, not every one of them managed to reach the heart of the star. After a divorce from

Madonna (English: Madonna) - the pop diva has the name given to her at birth. And among music lovers there is hardly a person who does not know who she is. Madonna's full name, Madonna Louise, was given to her in honor of her mother. Moreover, Madonna's last name is Ciccone. Thus, given the name given to the singer at confirmation, Madonna's full real name is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.

• Real name: Madonna Louise Ciccone
• Date of birth: 08/16/1958
• Zodiac sign: Leo
• Height: 163 centimeters
• Weight: 55 kilograms
• Waist and hips: 59 and 84 centimeters
• Shoe size: 38 (EUR)
• Eye and hair color: Green, dark brown.

IN recent years The pop diva, who has been often called the Queen of Pop by the media since the 1980s, is especially famous for remakes of her works. Both the music and the images are “remade.” At the same time, Madonna acts not only as a singer. Today she is also a renowned producer, composer, director, actress, poet, musician, dancer, as well as a writer and philanthropist.

She is a successful singer with three hundred million copies of her albums sold, thanks to which she even got into the Guinness Book of Records. At the same time, according to a rating compiled by Time magazine, the pop diva became one of the most influential women of the 20th century. In addition, she was also recognized by the authoritative publication Billboard as one of the most successful solo artists.

Difficult fate

Since the artist looks quite young, many are wondering: how old is the singer Madonna? After all, her creative journey has been going on for decades. Indeed, our heroine, whose age has already approached her sixties, retains her youth perfectly. It's hard to believe that she can look so gorgeous today. Therefore, looking at her active life position and remembering what year Madonna is, many of her fans often admire their idol.

However, the fate of the future pop diva was not easy. Her path to success turned out to be quite thorny. Born in the small town of Bay City, located in the suburbs of Detroit, the future star became the third child in a family of devout Catholics. And since the girl studied at a Catholic school, the singer’s name Madonna did not yet cause her much trouble. By her own admission, only years later, when she found herself in New York, where everyone was sure that Madonna was the pseudonym chosen for her image, she realized the unusualness of her name.

Hostility to drugs and the collapse of the image of an excellent girl

The future singer lost her mother early. And although our heroine’s mother loved to sing and play the piano, because of her fanatical religiosity, she did not strive to perform in public.

The stepmother, who subsequently appeared in Ciccone's house, only worsened the situation by introducing a Protestant spirit into it. The family began to completely save on everything. Children were fed only semi-finished foods, forcing them to literally wear their clothes in cast-offs before buying new ones. At the same time, the future pop diva was also forced to endure bullying from her drug-addicted older brothers, who were jealous of her father. According to the singer's biographers, Madonna owes much of her aversion to drugs to this fact, which is a rarity in show business.

After Catholic school, the future singer in high school finds herself in secular school, where she takes part in theatrical productions. However, despite her excellent academic performance and sporting success, the girl never manages to become “one of the people” among the students who considered her “a little welcome.” At the same time, as the singer herself admits, she did not particularly strive to communicate with her peers, since she saw them as “idiots”, and in herself - a poorly dressed “hillbilly”.

The turning point for the singer is the performance with which she shocked the audience at the West school talent evening. Then 14-year-old Madonna danced in front of the audience in a top and shorts. Because of this incident, which ended the reputation of a good girl, our heroine’s father even punished his daughter with house arrest.

Poverty and hunger in New York

The dreams of the stage in the life of the future pop diva were so strong that for the sake of them she dropped out of university and moved to New York. Moreover, at that time she was more drawn to choreography than to singing. However, she managed to pass the tough casting with great difficulty, as a result of which the artist had to live in poverty, barely making ends meet. It got to the point that during dance rehearsals the future world celebrity was weakened from hunger.

After many unsuccessful attempts to break through, the singer managed to record the single “Everybody”. At the same time, Madonna’s first work, despite a very meager budget and even the absence of her photo on the cover, took 3rd place in Hot Dance Club Songs. The subsequent single “Burning Up” was no less successful. As a result, attention was paid to the singer, and already in the summer of 1983 her debut album “Madonna” was released, which reached the top ten in the American and British charts.

Birth of first child and marriage to Guy Ricci

In the personal life of a pop diva, as often happens among bohemians, everything is not simple. Madonna gave birth to her first child in 1996, after marrying an aspiring actor from Cuba, Carlos Leon. However, this marriage broke up just six months after the birth of the girl, who was named Lourdes Maria Ciccone-Leon. In 2000, the singer had a son, Rocco, from director Guy Ricci, with whom she subsequently entered into a marriage that lasted 7 years.

Returning to the stage after a serious test

At the age of 47, Madonna was the victim of a horse riding accident on her birthday in Wiltshire. Having fallen from a horse, the singer woke up with many fractures.

Despite the serious test, our heroine found the strength to withstand the rehabilitation period with dignity and return to the stage. At the same time, the accident made the singer think about the philosophical aspect of the proximity of death, which was subsequently reflected in her work.

Madonna now has two biological and four adopted children from Malawi.

singer Madonna

Madonna Louise Ciccone. Born August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, USA. American singer, songwriter, producer, dancer, writer, actress, film director, screenwriter, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Madonna is considered the most commercially successful performer in history according to the Guinness Book of Records. with 300 million confirmed licensed sales. Time included the singer in its list of “25 Most Powerful Women of the Last Century,” assessing her influence on modern music.

Madonna is the best-selling rock artist of the 20th century according to the Recording Industry Association of America and the second best-selling female artist in the United States with 64.5 million certified album sales.

Billboard recognized the singer as the most successful artist in the history of recording among solo singers and singers.

Madonna became famous for constantly “reinventing” her music and images. She became one of the first female musicians to have a successful career on a major label without losing creative or financial control. The singer's videos are an integral part of MTV, adding new themes of texts or images of video clips to the mainstream.

Madonna's songs have generally received positive reviews from music critics, despite frequent media controversy regarding their themes of racism, gender discrimination, religion, politics, sex and violence. Madonna's debut album of the same name was released in 1983 on the Sire label and became the first in a series of successful albums by the author/singer.

Madonna has won a record 20 MTV Video Music Awards and 7 Grammy Awards., including prestigious nominations for the albums Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), as well as 2 Golden Globes.

The singer has many chart records and hits that reached first place on the main music charts, among which the most successful were the songs “Like a Virgin” (1984), “La Isla Bonita” (1986), “Like a Prayer” (1989), “Vogue” "(1990), "Frozen" (1998), "Music" (2000), "Hung Up" (2005) and "4 Minutes" (2008).

According to Forbes as of 2016, Madonna is the richest female musician in the world with a net worth of $560 million.

The singer's 2008-09 concert tour, Sticky & Sweet Tour, ranks as the top-grossing solo artist of all time. Madonna's recognition in music and cinema is well known - since the late 80s the media has called her the “Queen of Pop”, and in 2000 the Golden Raspberry anti-award named her the worst actress of the 20th century.

Madonna's films as director and screenwriter “Filth and Wisdom” and “WE. We Believe in Love" were crushed by critics and received limited theatrical release.

Madonna was born on August 16, 1958 in a town on the shores of Lake Huron, Michigan, USA. The singer's mother and namesake, Madonna Louise Ciccone, was French-Canadian and worked as a radiography technician. Father, Silvio Ciccone, an Italian-American, worked as a design engineer for the Chrysler/General Motors defense design bureau.

Madonna is the third child in the family, there were six children in total. The first girl in the family was named Madonna Louise in honor of her mother; this name was never officially changed. The name "Veronica" was chosen by Madonna Louise Ciccone at age 12 for the traditional Catholic sacrament of confirmation and is not official.

Madonna's mother was descended from the Jansenist early French settlers, and her piety bordered on fanaticism. My mother played the piano beautifully and sang, but she never wanted to perform in public.

During her sixth pregnancy, Madonna Ciccone (the eldest) was diagnosed with breast cancer. The mother adhered to the ideas of the pre-Vatican period, which still recognized sex as an immoral act, and abortion as murder under any conditions. She refused treatment for the rest of her pregnancy and died a few months after the birth of her sixth child at the age of 30.

Madonna (Younger)'s rejection of the fact that God could allow her mother to die became important aspect life and work of the singer. Two years later, the widowed father of the family remarried the maid Joan Gustafson - a simple woman and the complete opposite of the first. The couple's first child died, but soon they had two more children. The stepmother cared mainly about her own children, but the father forced all the children to call the woman “mom,” which Madonna never did, considering the father a traitor to the mother’s memory.

The family was quite wealthy, but Gustafson brought into the family the Protestant spirit of total economy on clothing and food - the family ate exclusively semi-finished products and the children almost did not wear store-bought clothes. Joan's methods of education were like a sergeant-major, which further strained the atmosphere in the family. Madonna aroused a sense of female competition in her stepmother due to the singer’s strong external resemblance to her late mother. Madonna was subjected to severe bullying by two older brothers who were drug addicts, who fought with her for their father’s attention, which, according to biographers, early laid in her a hostile attitude towards drugs.

The Ciccone family lived in the Detroit suburbs, where Madonna attended St. Frederick and St. Andrew and West Catholic schools and was a cheerleader on the basketball team. The singer graduated from high school at the secular Rochester Adams School, where she participated in theatrical productions and school musicals.

Ciccone studied with excellent marks, and the teachers took on the role of a mother in her upbringing. The singer called philosophy and Russian history teacher Marilyn Fallows one of the two most important people in her childhood. Despite her grades, Ciccone was considered by her peers to be a “good girl”; she was disliked for her excellent academic performance and position as a teacher’s favorite, and boys were afraid to ask her out on a date.

At the age of 14, Madonna was influenced as a pop lyricist by her friendship with the future recognized poet Win Cooper, who studied with her in the same school a grade older. According to Cooper, the girl was shy and a little aloof, avoided society, dressed modestly and especially loved the books of Aldous Huxley and the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The key event of Madonna's childhood is considered to be West's performance at the school talent evening at the age of 14. In it, an artist covered in green and pink paint in a top and shorts shocked the audience by performing a dance to the famous song "Baba O" Riley" by The Who. The reputation of an exemplary excellent student girl was hopelessly damaged, the performance was discussed for a long time in the city, and the father put his daughter under house arrest . “Heroine of the day”, brothers and sisters began to tease: “Madonna is a whore”, although it had nothing to do with sex.

From the age of four, Madonna Ciccone imitated the dances of Shirley Temple, but took up ballet at almost 15 years old, which was acceptable for modern jazz choreography. Choreographer Christopher Flynn was her greatest influence. Flynn took her time and took the student to classical concerts, exhibitions and, to broaden her horizons, to gay clubs. Flynn was gay 30 years older, so the student’s love remained unrequited, but, according to the singer’s recollections, this was the only person who understood her. The excellent student's appearance changed towards a sloppy bohemian look, scaring off others.

Biographers Andersen, Taraborrelli and Lucy O'Brien point out that although at age 14, Madonna had a reputation as a slut, but only at the age of 15 she had her first sexual experience with 17-year-old Russell Long, which the whole school and her father learned about at Ciccone’s suggestion. According to Lucy O’Brien, the fight against stereotypical attitudes toward women based on the “virgin/whore” criterion and the desire to tell others about her love experiences became the main themes of the singer’s work.

Madonna Ciccone graduated from school in 1976 a few months before her final exams. She continued her dance education on a full-time basis at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where Flynn received a professorship. The choice of a “frivolous” profession put a rift in the singer’s relationship with her father, who wanted his daughter to become a doctor or lawyer. The father believed that his daughter could find better use for her excellent certificate, which she successfully passed IQ test(according to biographers Christopher Andersen (1991) and Randy Taraborrelli (2000) The singer’s result at the age of 17 showed 140 points) and brilliant recommendations from teachers. Right to receive free higher education in the USA it is given to only a few, and Madonna moved into a university dormitory full of hopes for her brilliant future. According to teachers and colleagues, she had rare stamina even for a dancer, which was further developed by ballet training, and subsequently allowed her to become less out of breath while performing songs with simultaneous dancing.

According to the memoirs of choreographer Gaia Delang, young Ciccone was “very slender and light, her dance was infectious.” However, in technical terms, the budget Madonna was inferior to many ballerinas, causing their rejection and envy, and the inability to be absolutely the best caused protest and a desire to further stand out, as far as possible in the ballet class - with torn tights or unwashed short hair. In her free time from studying, Madonna visited clubs in Detroit, in one of which she met black drummer Stephen Bray, her future collaborator and co-producer.

After a year and a half at the University of Michigan, Madonna attended a master class with the famous New York choreographer Pearl Lang, and began to dream of joining her group. She dropped out of university and moved to New York in 1978, dreaming of one day opening her own dance studio.

Having passed a tough casting, she entered the Lang group, but was far from being in the first lineup, which did not allow her to pay rent. The dancer worked part-time at Dunkin’ Donuts, where she burned a donut oven while dancing behind the counter, and at Burger King, where she also didn’t last, pouring jam on a rude customer. She soon made her debut on the New York stage in Lang's production of I Never Saw Other Butterflies, as a boy from the Jewish ghetto.

Soon, Madonna Ciccone began to weaken in class due to malnutrition, and Lang arranged for the dancer to work in the evenings for food. cloakroom attendant at the Russian Samovar restaurant. At the same time, she worked part-time as a model in an art studio and as a nude model for photographers. Madonna rented a room in a cheap, dangerous area of ​​New York, where she was once orally raped by a maniac armed with a knife. After a mental injury, Madonna Ciccone became absent-minded in her classes and stopped believing in her dance future, even with the troupe of Lang, a student of the iconic Martha Graham.

Due to a lack of funds to pay rent, Ciccone began auditioning for Broadway musicals and as a backup dancer. In 1979, during the casting as a backup dancer for the world tour of the French disco singer Patrick Hernandez, Madonna Ciccone's performance was liked by the singer's Belgian producers Van Lieu and Perrelin. Professionals cannot help but pay attention to her plasticity and praise her pleasant voice, which sang the Christmas song “Jingle Bells”. To the complete surprise of Madonna, who had not previously considered herself a singer, she is invited to Paris, where they promise to make her “something like a dancing Edith Piaf.”

The artist finally leaves the Lang troupe, her lover Dan Gilroy and spends six months with Hernandez’s tour in France, Belgium and Tunisia. The producers convince her of the prospects of a singing career, but 20-year-old Madonna is passionate about punk rock, rebels against the Belgians and did not want to sing the proposed disco-pop material. Six months later, the singer falls ill with pneumonia and, after recovery, flies to New York, succumbing to letters and persuasion from her boyfriend Gilroy, who was waiting for her in New York. Gilroy has a huge influence on Madonna Ciccone's transformation from dancer to musician: teaching her how to play drums and electric guitar and the basics of composition. After daily drumming lessons to Elvis Costello's disc, Madonna becomes a pretty good drummer and is accepted into Gilroy's Breakfast Club group. After a few months, the drummer begins to “pull the blanket over herself,” offering her own material and leaves the team along with the guitarist who joined her.

In 1979, she starred in the amateur film “Specific Victim” in the role of a repentant sadomasochist who is raped in the toilet by a maniac. The unsuccessful amateur film was far from pornographic, but at the suggestion of the “sensational” press laid skepticism about Madonna Ciccone as a former porn star. According to biographers, this influenced her belated recognition as a musician. In 1980, together with Michael Monahan and Gary Burke, the singer formed the quickly disbanded group Madonna And The Sky, and then created the rock group Emmy. Emmy - from Em, a diminutive of the first letter of the name Madonna (Madonna Ciccone signed and continues to sign her songs as M. Ciccone). Emmy imitated the early Pretenders, and Madonna played guitar in the group and sang her own songs. The singer's ex-boyfriend Stephen Bray sits on drums and with him the Emmy group continues to search for its own direction.

In the spring of 1981, Madonna Ciccone meets the owner of the Gotham recording studio, Camille Barbon. Soon, Barbon offers to become the singer’s personal manager on the condition that she leaves the group, and Ciccone immediately agrees. Barbon decides that Madonna will perform without a guitar in order to allow her to dance freely on stage.

Barbon proudly recalls that she was able to spot a potential star because she was one of the few female managers in the “male realm of show business.” Before meeting the manager, the singer is in a desperate situation - performing on stage in men's pajamas, asking for food from guys she meets, riding only a bicycle and living illegally in a cheap studio.

At first, Madonna awakens only maternal feelings in the thirty-year-old lesbian Barbon: Camilla rents her ward a place to live, sets a salary of $100 a week and gives money as needed. Ciccone's group makes several demo recordings and plays in small clubs and at student parties.

Barbon unsuccessfully seeks a contract for the singer with a label, but the bosses of the major labels do not want to take risks. Barbon sees the new Chrissie Hynde in the singer, but soon begins to abuse alcohol, be jealous of Madonna towards everyone and cause scenes.

The drummer of Madonna's band, African-American Bray, has been gravitating towards dance music and hip-hop since the days of Detroit and asks the singer to record something together. After the main rehearsal, they are left alone and write four songs: "Everybody", "Ain't No Big Deal", "Stay" and "Burning Up". By that time, Barbon had already been offering the singer to labels for a year and a half as a new rock star, and the ward decided to secretly distribute a dance cassette with a demo recording at the Dunsteria club in Manhattan, where representatives of labels and the press sometimes dropped by.

Club DJ Mark Kamins is impressed by Madonna's demo recording. He takes the tape and arranges for them to meet with Island label boss Chris Blackwell. The meeting ends in failure - Madonna lives with Kamins in a room without hot water with milk crates instead of furniture and begins to sweat heavily due to excitement. Kamins is so annoyed by the failure and immediately, through his acquaintance Michael Rosenblatt, arranges a meeting for Ciccone with the founder of Sire Records, Seymour Stein, who immediately signs her, even while lying in the hospital with a heart attack. Ciccone becomes simply Madonna (Ciccone is often pronounced in English as Siccone), and Barbon cannot forgive the betrayal of his “baby” and for more than 20 years does not give permission to release the singer’s early songs.

Already in the 2000s, Barbon confessed to his then alcoholism and forgives Madonna for the offense. Barbon praises her importance in the singer's life, believing that thanks to her Madonna "didn't have to sleep with someone to get on stage," and "although at first there were rumors that someone was investing money in her, eventually they started her to be taken seriously."

All rights to Madonna's songs up to this demo belong to Gotham Studios and Barbon, and the question arises of what to release as a test single. All the songs on the cassette were co-written, but the friends traded rights - Bray's 100% credit for "Ain't No Big Deal" in exchange for Madonna's full rights to "Everybody". Madonna likes "Everybody", but Stein wants to release Bray's "Ain't No Big Deal", and "Everybody" is supposed to be on the flip side.

While the release is being prepared, Bray manages to sell “Ain’t No Big Deal” to another studio, which is recording a new vocalist. There is no time for a new recording and “Everybody,” as Madonna wanted, is being released as a single. With zero budget for promotion, they decide not to put the singer’s photo on the cover, so as not to scare off the non-white audience of the “black disco-soul singer.” "Everybody" climbs to No. 3 on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart and then to No. 107 overall, just shy of the top 100 on Billboard's Hot 100. Management considers this a great result, given the zero PR costs, and wants to make sure that "Everybody" is not a fluke.

At Madonna's request, a more experienced Warner Bros. in-house arranger is selected to replace Kamins. Records by Reggie Lucas. The second single, “Burning Up,” also reached number 3 on the dance hits chart, repeating the success of “Everybody,” and after that Madonna was allowed to rent a studio to record her first album.

In July 1983, their debut album entitled Madonna was released. At first it goes unnoticed, but within a year it reaches number 8 on the Billboard 200 and number 6 in the UK chart. The singles “Borderline” (written by the Lucases), “Lucky Star” (written by Madonna and dedicated to the retired Kamins) and “Holiday” became hits. Madonna considered the disc rather mediocre and was not too happy with working with Lucas, but years later the disc became a post-disco classic.

According to O'Brien, her music on the album sounds like a cross between Pat Benatar and Teena Marie. Madonna is the author of most of the album's songs, but the main commercial success comes from "Holiday" by third-party authors, found by the singer's boyfriend DJ John "Marmalade" Benitez. This influenced the skepticism towards Madonna as an author capable of writing a hit. The singer also received serious criticism for her “girlish” vocals and performance style. Billboard writer Paul Grain made a prediction: “Cyndi Lauper will last for a long time, but in six months no one will need Madonna”.

The singer responded to criticism: “People think that if you are sexy, visually attractive and excite the public, then you simply have nothing more to offer. This is the only image I have formed. It probably looks like this on the outside, and I fit the stereotype, but I do all this completely consciously. I have everything under control and am waiting for people to understand this and be confused.”.

After recording the album, on Stein's recommendation, Freddie Demann, who had previously worked for. Despite initial criticism, in 2013 Rolling Stone ranks this album among the top 100 debut albums of all time. Currently, sales of the Madonna album are 10 million copies, but this to a large extent contributed to the popularity of her next disc.

The second album Like a Virgin was released in 1984 and for the first time in her career the singer topped the US album chart. The single of the same name remains in first place on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 6 weeks, and the album sells 26 million copies worldwide. The hits are “Material Girl”, “Dress You Up”, “Angel” and “Over and Over”. Radio hit title "Material Girl"(Russian material girl, mercantile girl) is fixed as the singer’s nickname.

In 1984, Madonna performed the “title track” at the first MTV Video Music Awards and, breaking her heel, came out of the situation as follows - she began to kneel and lie on stage in a wedding dress and a belt with the inscription BOY TOY, which shocked the television audience. The song talks about “metaphysical virginity,” and the video, filmed in Venice (the city of Venus), combines sacred and profane images: Leo, the symbol of the patron saint of the city, Evangelist Mark, and the zodiac sign of Madonna Ciccone, the Bride of Christ and a modern, experienced maiden in crosses and fennel. "Like a Virgin" is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "200 Iconic Songs of All Time" list..

In 1985, the singer starred in an episode of the film “Visual Search”. The film's soundtrack contains "Crazy For You", Madonna's second No. 1 single in the US. Madonna later appears in the film Desperately Seeking Susan and this role is rated positively by critics. The film features the song "Into The Groove" - ​​the singer's first UK No. 1 single, and was written by Madonna Ciccone (with Bray), which gives her good press in the UK. The singer's first tour, The Virgin Tour, took place in the United States in 1985, with the Beastie Boys performing as the opening act. The performances reflect the surge in the singer's popularity at this time: concerts start with halls of 2,000 people, and 3 months later 22,000 spectators gather at Madison Square Garden. Tour calls “Madonnamania”: girls dress en masse “as Susan/Madonna” from the film and clips.

In July 1985, Penthouse and Playboy magazines published black and white photographs of the singer nude, taken in 1979 and subsequently sold by photographer Martin Schreiber. This causes the first scandal in Madonna Ciccone's just-begun big career, which threatened her career, which she handles with her own hands. In the midst of criticism at the Live Aid charity concert, while dressed in several layers of outdated clothes, the singer is seen screaming “Take off your clothes!” crowd. She says that she will not take off her jacket even in the wild heat, since in a few years it could be used against her.

The New York Times editorial with the headline “Naked Photographs.” Madonna: “So what?”” becomes the basis of the film by the singer’s friend Keith Haring. As soon as the scandal with the photographs subsided, in early August the Los Angeles Times disseminated information that the film “A Specific Victim” (1979) with the participation of the artist was pornographic, which was immediately picked up by other publications. In October, the newspaper will write a refutation that, to the “disappointment of fans,” this is not so. In the summer of 1985, on her own birthday, Madonna married actor Sean Penn. The wedding is accompanied by the invasion of journalists in helicopters during the pronouncing of marriage vows. In his diary he called this day “the most exciting of his life,” noting the guests were “a delightful mixture of celebrities and nonentities.”

Third album True Blue with dedication to Sean Penn comes out in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine describes it as "sounding from the heart." The album becomes Madonna's producing debut (together with Patrick Leonard) and is the singer's most “gingerbread” and commercially successful release. The singer also changes her image and for the first time appears in the Hollywood image of a seductive blue-eyed blonde. The album includes the singer’s iconic ballad “Live to Tell,” written for the film Point Blank. "Live to Tell" becomes Madonna's first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 as a writer.

Three songs from the album hit the first line of Billboard: “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Open Your Heart”, and the top five included “True Blue” and “La Isla Bonita”. That same year, the Madonna/Bray song “Each Time You Break My Heart” performed by Nick Kamen topped the UK chart, giving Madonna the recognition she so desired as a successful songwriter.

Madonna - La Isla Bonita

In 1987, Madonna is hospitalized for an X-ray after being hit in the head with a baseball bat. The press is awaiting trial, but the singer is not suing for domestic violence, since her husband Sean Penn is already facing a two-month sentence for fighting and driving while intoxicated.

Due to the aggressive behavior of “Mr. Madonna” towards journalists and his wife, the press begins to call them “evil Penns” and S&M (Sean & Madonna) - a hint of sadomasochistic relationships in the celebrity family. In the same year, the singer starred in the film “Who’s That Girl?”, which failed miserably. However, the success of the film's soundtrack is great - the title track of the same name becomes a No. 1 hit in the US and UK. The New York Times magazine calls the film the worst film of the year. In the same year, he goes on the Who’s That Girl World Tour, which completely compensates for the negative effect of the failed film. Critics praise the performances for their theatricality and "transforming a rock concert into a multimedia spectacle."

Reviewers write that the concerts are like a circus, where the heroine skillfully demonstrates the skills of an entertainer, acrobat and clown. The projection on stage of Tamara Lempicka's The Musician (1928), showing a brightly painted woman with long nails holding a lyre against the backdrop of New York skyscrapers, became a characteristic of Madonna's work for many years. According to authoritative music critic Lucy O'Brien, Madonna is an urban mixture high art with glamor and vulgarity, where she is at the same time a muse, a creator, and a sexy woman. By August 1987, Penn was released early from prison, and in December Madonna filed for divorce for the first time, but unexpectedly withdrew them two weeks later.

In 1988, the singer made her Broadway debut in the production of Move Over., with an obvious desire to improve the actor's reputation. The performance receives rave reviews, but Madonna herself receives negative comments from almost all critics and is disappointed in the benefits of her husband’s recommendations for her. acting career. During rehearsals, Madonna begins to become friends with actress and open lesbian Sandra Bernhard, causing misconceptions among the public.

The singer and Bernhard appear in the same clothes on David Letterman's show, which leads to publications about the singer's bisexuality. The final separation from her husband occurs in December 1988 after severe beatings described in the official arrest report of Sean Penn. The marriage of the singer and Penn officially ends in January 1989 and the singer withdraws her statement to the police, maintaining friendly relations with her husband due to his hereditary problems with alcohol. In 2003, Penn spoke about Madonna for the first time in an interview with Oprah Winfrey: "She was becoming greatest star. I just wanted to make a movie and not attract unnecessary attention to myself. I was an embittered young man with so many demons living inside me that I don’t even know who could have tolerated me back then.”.

At the beginning of 1989, Madonna signed a contract with Pepsi, according to which her new song "Like a Prayer" debuts in the company's advertising. The commercial is harmless and shows the singer's childhood, but the video for the song contains an anti-racist message and many Catholic symbols, including stigmata and burning crosses. The ambiguous relationship between the Madonna heroine and the animated statue of a black saint shocks television viewers and provokes public organizations. The company removes the advertisement from rotation and terminates the contract, but the singer receives her due amount of five million dollars. Vatican officials condemn the video clip, and some cardinals threaten Madonna with excommunication, but it remains a threat. The song was named by the British weekly New Musical Express as the 3rd best in the history of pop music, VH1 put the video in 2nd place.

The fourth album Like a Prayer was released at the end of 1989 and becomes a turning point in Madonna's career. Like a Prayer was written and produced in collaboration with Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray. The singer is producing her second album in a row and it is obvious that she wants to prove that True Blue's success was not an accident. Rolling Stone magazine describes the album as "... as close to art as pop music can get" and included it in its list of the "500 Best Albums of All Time". Leonard calls him a “divorcee” because of the singer’s depression due to her painful breakup with Sean Penn. 'Express Yourself' Becomes a Feminist 'Call to Arms' with a “preach of self-respect”, representing the transition from reflection to action. The themes of other songs, as expected, are domestic violence (“Till Death Do Us Parts”), nostalgia for lost relationships with brothers and sisters (“Keep It Together”), dreams of a child (“Dear Jessie”). All songs on the album Like a Prayer were written by Madonna, which makes the album the most personal, since the previous discs contained one or two songs by third-party authors.

Madonna - Like A Prayer

In 1990, the film with Madonna “Dick Tracy” and its soundtrack called I’m Breathless were released. The director of the film was Warren Beatty, who received a refusal from the singer to marry him after a year of dating. I'm Breathless contains songs by famous composer Stephen Sondheim and the writing duo Madonna-Leonard. For the first time, the singer enters the territory of jazz and the Broadway musical, which critics regard ambiguously. The most successful of I’m Breathless is “Vogue”, which topped the main charts. Recitative “ladies with an attitude; fellows that were in the mood...” written by Madonna on the plane as an illustration of the 30s, but becomes a characteristic of modernity. In Russia it is known as the epigraph of the first chapter of the book “Spiritless”. The title of the book is a partial translation of the name of Madonna's character from the film - "Breathless".

The Blond Ambition World Tour took place in 1990 in support of the albums Like A Prayer and I'm Breathless. Rolling Stone praises the tour for its innovative interweaving of theater, ballet, film and concert on a production level unheard of at the time. The show's central message of juxtaposing masturbation and religious frenzy culminates in a call for a boycott of the singer's performance in Rome.

Madonna tries to justify herself on the spot by giving a great speech at Leonardo Da Vinci Airport: “My show is a theatrical play that invites the audience on an emotional journey... I do not impose my idea of ​​how to live on anyone, I simply describe to the audience my understanding of life, and let them evaluate everything themselves.” The singer avoids excommunication, but the concert is canceled due to low ticket sales. For the concert video of the tour, the singer receives her first Grammy, but she herself does not consider the award to be recognition of her work, since the nomination for the video is secondary.

In the same year, the singer once again shocked the public with a video for the song. "Justify My Love". The video is prohibited from being shown on television due to the presence of erotic scenes. "Justify My Love" is the source of several scandals, the first of which is related to plagiarism. Madonna uses the text of a letter she came across from Ingrid Chavez, the then-girlfriend of the song's co-producer Lenny Kravitz, not wanting listeners to attribute it to the fantasies of another woman. The Chicago Sun-Times branded the singer with disgrace with words about the “unprecedented meanness” of stealing the song.

Madonna makes excuses and rewrites the song, replacing the lyrics with quotes from Revelation, but immediately receives accusations of anti-Semitism, which she also has to reject. The unrhymed lyrics of “Justify My Love” about the desire to make love and scandals affect the singer’s self-esteem and author’s vanity, making a qualitative leap in Madonna’s creative search, leading her into “adult” territory for the first time.

In 1991, Sondheim's song "Sooner or Later" from Dick Tracy won an Academy Award and was performed by Madonna at the ceremony as . It was from this moment that the singer was called the new Marilyn and began to be compared with the late sex symbol, immediately predicting the same unenviable fate. A documentary about the tour was released the same year and is called “Madonna: Truth or Dare.” The fragment with the joke/bravado “Madonna with a bottle”, outside the context of a party game (tell the truth or accept a challenge), reminiscent of forfeits, contributes to the perception of the singer in the context of pornography. Outside the USA and Canada (countries where the game was popular), distributors release the film under a different name - "In bed with Madonna", which does not reflect the content, but the singer has no right to change, although she admits that she “hates him because of his stupidity.” The film is one of the top ten highest-grossing documentaries of all time, and the New York Times calls the film "a smart, daring, vivid self-portrait."

In 1992, Madonna starred in the film A League of Their Own as a baseball player with speaking name May Mordabito. For the film, she recorded the song “This Used to Be My Playground,” which became No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. That same year, Madonna founded her own entertainment company, Maverick, a joint venture with Time Warner. The deal provides the singer with record royalties on par with Michael Jackson.

In 1992, the book-photo album “Sex” was published."Sex" contains illustrated sexual fantasies of her alter ego "Mistress Dita" talking to a psychoanalyst. The book is framed in a metal cover as an art object and is intended to be a manifesto. “Sex” sold 1.5 million copies in America alone and caused a flurry of negative reactions in the media and a society fearful of AIDS.

The press holds a multi-page funeral for Madonna's career, considering that she has gone too far. The book "Sex" touches on the themes of masturbation, and draws clear parallels between sadomasochism and religious self-flagellation, and also contains an ironic attitude towards taboo. Lesbians felt that the singer was mocking their movement by portraying one of them and called her a “sexy tourist.” French journalist Françoise Tournier wrote: “When you get to the bottom of Sex, like finding a poisonous mushroom, you realize that the one who is called the “new little Piaf” is driven more by a thirst for money than a thirst for sex.”.

“Sex” and the violent reaction to it in society has become the topic of many scientific studies and is considered the most powerful inoculation against the exhibitionistic celebrity/musician in a voyeuristic society. The book has been the most wanted book out of print for several years. After the release of “Sex,” boyfriend Vanilla Ice broke off an 8-month relationship with the singer, allegedly not expecting his photographs to be published in the book.

In 1992, the fifth studio album Erotica was released. Erotica took second place in the American charts, and the lead single reached third place on the Billboard Hot 100. In the year of release, Erotica was coolly received by critics and listeners due to the “shadow of the book,” but subsequently began to be considered one of the singer’s strongest works. The singles "Erotica", "Rain", "Deeper and Deeper", "Bad Girl" and "Fever" (a cover version of an Elvis Presley song) did not have the same chart success as the singer's previous works.

In 1993, without a theatrical release, the film " Dangerous game"directed by Ferrara and starring Madonna. The New York Times calls the film "angry and painful, where the pain seems real."

"Dangerous Game" contains Sarah/Madonna's account of a real-life rape that took place in 1978. Erotic thriller with a singer "Body as Evidence" (1993) contains scenes of sadomasochism with bondage and fails with critics and distributors. The press cultivates the opinion that the singer is a sex maniac, the embodiment of sin, making a career exclusively through bed.

The 1993 tour of “The Girlie Show” in Europe and South America (instead of the USA and Canada) contains more burlesque, irony and clowning than eroticism, which softens the negative after the release of the book “Sex”, the album Erotica and film roles. A concert in Puerto Rico causes pickets: a singer dressed in military uniform, in response to the audience whistling when a huge American flag appears, holds a Puerto Rican flag in the crotch area. The episode was interpreted ambiguously due to the singer's numerous romantic interests with Puerto Ricans, and was later subjected to scrupulous analysis as an example of the mutual influence of Latin American culture and the United States.

Her sixth studio album, Bedtime Stories, was released in 1994 and became her first Grammy-nominated album. The hits are “Secret”, “Take a Bow”, “Bedtime Story” and “Human Nature”. Babyface/Madonna's "Take a Bow" hits No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, but breaks a record streak of 32 consecutive Top 10 hits on the UK singles chart.

The singer changes her style towards R'n'B and hip-hop, and for the first time since Like A Virgin began working with major producers - Dallas Austin, David Foster, Dave Hall (who worked with Mariah Carey) and Marius De Vries and Nellie Hooper ( who worked with Björk). "Bedtime Story", the lyrics of which were written by the already recognized Björk, becomes an important milestone. Madonna perfectly masters the “Bjorkian architecture of the text” and lays the foundation for her next albums in it. The relationship with rapper Tupac Shakur ends for a racist reason - his friends “couldn’t believe he was hanging out with a white girl.”

The singer begins a short relationship with basketball player Denis Rodman. A year after the breakup, he writes a bestseller with an entire chapter about sex with Madonna. According to Lucy O'Brien, during the press coverage of this story, it became obvious that Madonna, who wants to have a child, starts relationships with unsuitable men, which harms her career.

In 1995, “You"ll See” from the album of ballads Something to Remember became a hit. The album reminds the public a little about Madonna’s talent as a songwriter and producer, which the press had not previously paid attention to amid the scandals. According to Taraborrelli, “for the first time about her career was spoken about more honestly and fairly.” In 1996, the singer starred in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita., where he performs songs from the soundtrack. For the recording, Madonna begins taking vocal lessons from Joan Lader for the first time, which brings results. On the Evita soundtrack, she demonstrates her upper register and singing with her diaphragm for the first time. The film about , the controversial wife of the Argentine president, is receiving positive reviews from film critics and author Andrew Lloyd Webber. Weber wins an Oscar for Madonna's performance of "You Must Love Me." Song "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" becomes a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart, and the singer receives a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.

In October 1996, Madonna gave birth to a daughter, Lourdes Maria Ciccone-Leon. The girl's father is the singer's then-boyfriend, Cuban fitness trainer and aspiring actor Carlos Leon. Seven months after the birth of their daughter, they separate, and Madonna incurs wrath public organizations"for complete family” and accusations of “pregnancy for the purpose of promoting a film.” The singer baptizes the girl in Catholicism and named her after the city of Lourdes in France, which her extremely religious mother dreamed of visiting. During pregnancy, the singer delves into yoga, the study of Buddhism and Kabbalah, which she describes as “a physics lesson, a bridge between science and spirituality,” rather than a religious teaching.

Seventh studio album by singer Ray of Light (1998) reflected the “spiritual rebirth” of the singer and became decisive in all her work. The direction of his development was influenced by motherhood, a philosophical rethinking of reality and an affair with the English screenwriter and actor Andy Bird. The album received critical acclaim, and the authoritative music publication Slant Magazine called it “one of the greatest pop masterpieces of the 90s.”

The disc was included in the list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and took 28th place in the "100 Best Albums of the 1990s" according to Rolling Stone magazine. The release was also accompanied by commercial success: the album topped the national charts in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and most European countries, and in the USA it finished at number two on the Billboard 200, losing first place to the soundtrack to the film “Titanic”.

Ray of Light has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. Album single "Frozen" the first time in the singer’s discography since “Vogue” (1990) that it reached number one in the UK chart. In the US, the song reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100, where Madonna set the record for the most number of singles to reach number two. On the disc, the singer “looked carefully into the past and thought a lot about the mystical side of existence.” After Ray Of Light, Madonna was again seen as a progressive musician. Evaluating the work, the singer tried in every possible way to praise the “brilliant” producer of the album, William Orbit, but he himself considered his contribution to “her” album to be rather modest. Following the established tradition of a condescending attitude towards pop authors/performers, critics attributed the success of the record to Orbit. Ray of Light was awarded a Grammy(including in one of the main nominations “Best Pop Album”).

Madonna - Frozen

The hits included "The Power of Good-Bye", "Nothing Really Matters", "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" and the title track "Ray of Light". The video for "Ray of Light" last received 6 MTV Video Music Awards in 1999. Madonna's performance at the ceremony with a song in Sanskrit "Shanti/Ashtangi" and "Ray of Light" wearing an Indian outfit with a dot on his forehead, symbolizing devotion to God, caused protests from the country's Hindu organizations and accusations of blasphemy.

The singer’s image was influenced by her passion for the book “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Also in 1999, she released the single “Beautuful Stranger” (Russian: beautiful foreigner), written for the soundtrack to the film “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” The song became a big hit outside the US and earned Madonna another Grammy for "Best Song Written for a Feature Film". The singer's relationship with Andy Bird, described in this song as a “beautiful foreigner,” lasted about a year. In the summer of 1998, accompanied by him, she attended a party for Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, where she met Guy Ritchie, her future husband and father of her second child. Richie was not free, dating model Tanya Strecker, and romantic relationship with the singer arose a year later, and their development included a public bar brawl between Ritchie and Bird. This story later became the basis for Robbie Williams' song “She's Madonna” (2006).

In 2000, the film “Best Friend” starring Madonna was released, for which she recorded a hit "American Pie" and the ballad "Time Stood Still". These songs ended the era of the Ray of Light album. In early 2000, she became pregnant by Guy Ritchie, who worked on the film Snatch. and was forced to move to London with him to record an album. In August 2000, their son Rocco was born.

In September 2000, the eighth studio album Music was released. The disc received rave reviews from critics and went to No. 1 in both the UK and the US, repeating the success of Like a Prayer (1989). Under the influence of the disc's co-author and co-producer, Mirve completely changed her sound and began using a vocoder for the first time. Three singles were released from Music: Music, "Don't Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl". The video for "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was banned from MTV and VH1 due to scenes of violence. For the album, the singer chose a grotesque image of a cowgirl, expressing an ironic attitude towards America as a London resident.

Married Richie on December 22, 2000, the former stepson of a baronet, which automatically ranked the singer among the English aristocracy. The wedding in a Scottish castle took place according to the Presbyterian rite. Soon Madonna became a British subject. The Michigan native's fake British accent became a source of irritation for Americans and irony for the British. This has taken root in the colloquial language with the expressions “Madonna syndrome” and “Madge complex.” Life on his own estate, Ashcombe, a Wiltshire village, influenced the mood of subsequent works and attitudes towards the United States.

In 2001, for the first time in 8 years, the singer resumed touring, and the sold-out Drowned World Tour took place. The concerts received positive reviews from critics, despite the dark drama. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, Madonna excluded from the show the moment of shooting a samurai with a gun, according to the plot, who was trying to cut off her head. For the first time since the early 1980s, the singer began accompanying on guitar, and was nominated for an Orville Gibson Award.

At the end of 2001, a single was released for the James Bond film “Die Another Day” under the same name "Die Another Day". For her cameo role in the film, the singer received the Golden Raspberry Award, in addition to the title of Worst Actress of the Millennium. The song received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song and a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Song. Movie "Gone" was critically panned and released straight to DVD in the UK. At the moment, this is Madonna's last film as an actress.

The ninth album, American Life, was released in 2003. and topped the charts in the US and UK. American Life was written and produced by Madonna in collaboration with Mirvais in a minimalist concept. American Life quickly lost ground and became the worst seller of its career at that time. The album received mixed reviews from critics due to its theme of debunking the "American Dream" in light of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. Later it was rated more highly. In addition to “Die Another Day” (2002), the singles included “American Life”, “Hollywood”, “Love Profusion”, “Nothing Fails”.

In France it was a great success due to the pacifist mood, since this country did not participate in the operation against the Taliban. The video for the title song featured a parody of American President George Bush and his kiss with Saddam Hussein. After accusations of lack of patriotism, there was a ban on playing Madonna's new songs on American radio stations. A week before the release, she said that “there is no better time for a pacifist video than during war.” IN last moment withdrew the clip, stating that it “did not want to embarrass people whose relatives are fighting in Afghanistan,” which did not affect the ban.

In September 2003, Madonna Ciccone made her debut in children's literature with the picture book English Roses, topping The New York Times bestseller list. Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller unexpectedly shared his positive opinion about the book, calling it “more than just a children’s fairy tale” in the newspaper Rzeczpospolita. Madonna's performance at the MTV ceremony provoked a scandal. The singer appeared dressed as a groom, and Christina Aguilera played the role of the bride. The French kiss with Spears caused a scandal in the press due to its hint of lesbianism. The singer justified herself by the logic of the kiss in the stage images she performed.

Madonna and Britney Spears - kiss

In 2004, the Re-Invention World Tour took place in support of American Life. In contrast, the Drowned World Tour contained a sufficient number of old hits in a new sound in addition to songs from the new album. The performances received mixed reactions from critics due to the general politicization and open support of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. During the tour, a second documentary film, “I’m going to tell you a secret,” was filmed. The film was made in the style of “In Bed with Madonna,” but showed the singer’s passion for “Zohar” and her touching relationship with her children and husband Guy Ritchie. A DVD of the film and live album of the same name was released a year later. According to Lucy O'Brien, the film began the merging of the singer with the image of the righteous woman.

In 2005, Madonna Ciccone suffered an accident at her Wiltshire estate. The new horse unsuccessfully threw the singer to the ground during her first ride. Before the accident in the village, Madonna had completely grown into the role of an English aristocrat (by marriage), a reclusive wife and mother of the family. In addition to the British accent and horse riding, she began drinking ale in local pubs and learned to fish. The singer began hunting pheasants, although before that she was a vegetarian, for which she was blacklisted by PETA.

After the horse "played polo" with the singer, she lost consciousness and woke up with multiple fractures. After this, the singer changed internally and outwardly lost a lot of weight. The album was called Confessions on a Dance Floor and returned Madonna to the leading position in almost all the charts, as well as the title of queen of the dance floor. This happened not least thanks to the mega-hit “Hung Up”, written based on an Abba sample. Madonna Ciccone wrote and produced the record with her longtime engineer and keyboardist Stuart Price. Due to the lack of rotation of Madonna's new songs in the United States since the American Life scandal, the singer's homeland became one of the few countries where the single "Hung Up" did not become No. 1, but only took 7th place.

During the subsequent tour, another scandal took place, according to Lucy O'Brien, caused by the experience of near death due to a fall from a horse. This was the performance of the classic ballad “Live To Tell” a la Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns on a mirror cross, accompanied by a video of children suffering in Africa and quotes from Matthew 25:40. At the end of the issue, addresses of sites for collecting donations for sick African children were shown. This speech raised questions and anger among activists. social movements, which quickly faded away due to the spread of the video over the Internet, the singer’s statement and the meaning of the song itself.

All tickets for the tour concerts were sold out, except for the singer's first concert in Moscow, where the Russian Orthodox Church called on believers to boycott the performance, calling it "blasphemous." At the end of the tour, the singer and her husband adopted a one-year-old child from Malawi, David Banda. This caused another scandal and a wave of protests against the “purchase” of a child, since the then laws of Malawi, despite 1 million orphans in the country, did not allow adoption by foreign citizens. That same year, Madonna Ciccone produced and narrated a documentary about the disastrous state of affairs in the African country of Malawi, entitled I Am Because We Are, which was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.

In 2007, Madonna Ciccone began to master the new profession of film director, writing the script for a partly autobiographical parable film "Dirt and Wisdom". In the film, the hero is trying to promote his rock band, while earning his living by beating masochists for money and dressing up as. “Dirt and Wisdom,” starring Evgeny Gudzem, was included in the Panorama program at the Berlin Film Festival, where it was coolly received by critics. Film critics positively noted the music of the gypsy folk-punk rock band Gogol Bordello and the presence of the main character, which Russian swearing brought into the British non-commercial film.

The eleventh album Hard Candy was released in early 2008 and topped the charts in 37 countries, including the US and UK. To work on Hard Candy, Madonna Ciccone turned to the main hit-makers of the second half of the 2000s: Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. The singer explained the reason for the change in style with her interest in these artists and the desire to learn from the new generation. The singer admitted that she wanted to regain the love of American radio listeners, whom she lost with her 2003 anti-war album. The album received mixed reviews from critics for the lack of originality characteristic of previous works, and some crisis of the singer herself, reflected in the provocative cover of the album, which sharply contrasts with the style of “Ray of Light”.

The album's first single was a duet with Timberlake, 4 Minutes. The song 4 Minutes only partially met expectations, becoming a radio hit and Madonna’s most successful single in the States since “Don’t Tell Me” (2001), but never became No. 1 in the United States due to low rotation on radio, despite record-breaking sales, the song became her record 13th No. 1 single in the UK. A hit in Europe was the song "Give It 2 ​​Me", performed with Pharell Williams.

The tour in support of the album was called the Sticky and Sweet Tour and did not contain provocative material. The Sticky and Sweet Tour broke the record for the most successful tour for a solo artist, previously set by Madonna herself with her previous Confessions Tour. The book by the singer's gay brother Christopher Ciccone, Life with My Sister Madonna, published against her will in early 2008, showed Guy Ritchie as an obvious homophobe and a slippery guy manipulating his sister. During the tour in October 2008, the singer announced her divorce from her husband. On June 12, 2009, the singer adopted a Malawian girl, Mercy James, whose desire to adopt is considered the main reason for Madonna’s divorce from her husband, who had three children. For the first time in her career, the singer decided to extend the tour until the summer of 2009.

In 2009, the third collection was released best songs Madonnas Celebration, which ended the singer’s relationship with the Warner Bros. label. The singer's boyfriend, model Jesus Luz, starred in the video for the song "Celebration". In 2010, Madonna exclusively granted the television series Glee the rights to her entire catalog of songs. In April 2010, the episode "The Power of Madonna" was released. The episode received the singer's approval, and the soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 album chart.

In 2010, Madonna Ciccone opened a chain of her own fitness clubs, named after her Hard Candy album. In 2010, Madonna Ciccone and her daughter Lourdes Leon launched the youth clothing brand Material Girl. At the presentation of the collection, Madonna Ciccone met Pokemon Crew breakdancer Brahim Zeba, who performed at the event, who became the singer’s boyfriend for 3 years and also starred in her video.

In December 2011, the film “WE. We believe in love", where Madonna Ciccone directed and wrote the screenplay. The film received scathing criticism, but Andrea Riseborough's performance as Wallis Simpson and the film's soundtrack drew rave reviews. The continuation of the “Russian” theme in Madonna’s second film was noted: the main character’s name is Eugene and he is depicted as an intelligent, positive character.

At the beginning of 2012, Madonna's song “Masterpiece” from the film “Us. We Believe in Love" was recognized as the best at the Golden Globe Awards.

Madonna - Masterpiece

On February 5, 2012, Madonna performed at halftime of the 46th Super Bowl, which aired on NBC. She sang a medley of “Vogue”, “Music”, “Open Your Heart”, “Express Yourself”, “Like a Prayer” and a new song “Give Me All Your Luvin’” with Nicki Minaj, M.I.A. and the LMFAO group. Madonna's game and performance became the most watched television program in US history. Patriotic critics noted that the singer inappropriately mocked the “sacredness” of the Super Bowl for Americans by using images of the goddess Isis/Cleopatra performed by Elizabeth Taylor. In the US, the new single set a record for top ten hits for a solo artist, breaking the achievement. The single was a flop in the UK.

The singer's twelfth album MDNA was released on March 26, 2012 and topped the US and UK charts. Critics considered the record a dark record of a painful divorce, and The Telegraph called it a "late-break success" due to Madonna's lack of progress as a songwriter. The video for the second single Girl Gone Wild was censored due to explicit scenes. The album, without a promotional tour in support, became the worst-selling album in the singer's career.

The MDNA Tour began on May 31 and became the most successful tour of 2012. The concerts caused a public outcry in the United States due to the use of imitation weapons on stage. Billboard once again named Madonna the record holder for music industry income - $34.6 million for the year. In 2013, Madonna received 3 Billboard Music Awards. In August 2013, Forbes magazine named the singer the top celebrity earner of the year, earning $125 million.

On September 24, Madonna released a 17-minute short film, "secretprojectrevolution", performing a cover of Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars" at the premiere. The film was billed as a human rights film and was the result of a collaboration between director Madonna and photographer Steven Klein. At the same time, “secretprojectrevolution” in HD and 2K format was officially released for free download after registration on the BitTorrent “Bundle” site. The film became the first project within the framework of a joint campaign between Madonna and VICE called “ArtForFreedom” (Russian: Art for Freedom). The film was accompanied by the launch of Madonna's magazine of the same name on the Flipboard service.

In December 2014, an unexpected leak of 13 demo versions of songs that were recorded while working on Madonna's thirteenth studio album occurred on the Internet. The artist was furious at what happened, later leaving several threatening messages addressed to the pirates. A few days after the leak, on December 20, Madonna officially announced her thirteenth long play, called Rebel Heart. In connection with the pre-order of the album, six new songs out of a possible 19 have become available, including the lead single "Living for Love". The album was released on March 10, 2015.

In the 2016 presidential elections, she supported her distant relative -. Two weeks before the election, she announced a performance by stand-up comedian Amy Schumer, known in the United States for her below-the-belt jokes. Ciccone joked that she would give a blowjob to anyone who voted for Clinton.

On January 21, 2017, during a speech at the mass protest “Women's March,” Madonna twice used obscene language towards opponents of the action. In a performance that followed the speech with songs like “Express Yourself” and “Human Nature,” she changed the latter line to an expletive directed at the 45th president, with whom she had been in open feud since the early 1990s. The singer was criticized for swearing and speaking out loud “anti-patriotic” thoughts about the explosion of the White House. There was no prosecution due to the general context of the speech, in which she also quoted the Anglo-American poet Auden.

Since September 2017, Madonna moved permanently to Lisbon, where her adopted son David Banda successfully qualified for the Benfica FC football academy.

Madonna's height: 163 centimeters

Madonna's personal life:

Madonna's first husband was an actor and director, an Oscar winner. Sean Penn. They got married in 1985, and 4 years later Madonna decided to get a divorce - they often argued, and her husband also beat her.

On the set of Dick Tracy, Madonna began an affair with the director and leading actor, Hollywood legend Warren Beatty. However, she did not marry the artist.

Her daughter's father became her Cuban boyfriend Carlos Leon in 1996 (the diva would break up with him six months later). Madonna's daughter was named Lourdes, she has already celebrated her 18th birthday, and she has a joint business with her mother - her own clothing line.

Madonna and Carlos Leon

In mid-1998, together with her then friend Andy Bird, the singer attended a party with Sting. There there was a meeting with director Guy Ritchie, a British man who would later become her husband and change Madonna’s personal life, and very much so.

In 2000, Madonna moved in with her lover, and the couple's son Rocco was born in August of the same year.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie

Madonna discography:

1983 - Madonna
1984 - Like a Virgin
1986 - True Blue
1989 - Like a Prayer
1992 - Erotica
1994 - Bedtime Stories
1998 - Ray of Light
2000 - Music
2003 - American Life
2005 - Confessions on a Dance Floor
2008 - Hard Candy
2012 - MDNA
2015 - Rebel Heart.

Filmography of Madonna:

1985 - Susan's Search in Vain
1987 - Who is this girl?
1987 - Dick Tracy
1991 - In bed with Madonna
1992 - A League of Their Own
1993 - Dangerous Games
1996 - Evita
2000 - Best Friend
2002 - Gone
2005 - Madonna. I want to tell you my secrets
2002 - I am because we are
2008 - Dirt and wisdom
2011 - WE. We believe in love
2017 - (Her-Story)

Madonna's books:

"Sex"
"English Roses"
"Mr. Peabody's Apples"
"Jacob and the Seven Thieves"
"The Adventures of Abdi"
"Lotsa Tight Wallet"
"English roses. Love and friendship."