The mother of re-invention
and released her first book, Sex – a photography coffee table book. This was anything goes Madonna.
“Being the vixen, the heartbreaker and the incredibly provocative girl is a very marketable image,” she once said. “But it’s not insincere. You just can’t take it that seriously.”
By 1996, it was time for another persona: Mum to Lourdes, fathered by backing dancer Carlos Leon, and Serious Musical Movie Star.
The line between her and her Eva Peron in Evita may seem distinct, but as audiences flocked to see Madge on a balcony belting out Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, there was a sense that this was her big redemption moment too.
Madge was now a mum getting critical acclaim and soon became a follower of Kabbalah. The new religion was followed in 1998 by a new dark hairdo, a new love of ashtanga yoga, and the new dark dance/electro-pop sounds of her Ray of Light album, including Frozen. “I feel like when my daughter was born, I was born again,” she told Oprah at the time.
But as ever, she knew: stay still too long and you’ll be left behind.
Having met Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels director Guy Ritchie, and married him at Skibo Castle, near Dornoch in Sutherland, in 2000, marital bliss and the arrival of second child Rocco ushered in the era of Lady Madonna, British gentrywoman.
Madonna was living out her To the
Manor Born fantasies, riding horses and clay-pigeon shooting.
The pair had six historic properties in London, a country estate in Wiltshire and London boozer The Punch Bowl.
Come 2008 and both the marriage and British fairytale were over.
Madonna later admitted: “I found myself as a wife, being as I think everybody is: You try to please another person, and sometimes you find you are not being who you really are.”
What Madonna became next was a global supermum, saving children while saving the world.
Having travelled to Malawi and seeing families in need, she controversially adopted David Banda, now 16, then Mercy James, also 16. In 2017 she adopted Malawi twins Stella and Estere, now nine, making her a mum of six. She set up a foundation, and has built 10 schools in Malawi alone. As the years rolled past, the reinvention cycle continued – Madonna even did The Re-Invention tour in 2014.
Yet her recent period, in Portugal, was maybe one of the most surprising. Living in a castle near Lisbon, she jammed with local musicians and became Latin-inspired, eyepatch-wearing alter-ego Madame X.
“It’s quite medieval and feels like a place where time stopped in a way, and it feels very closed,” she said of the period. “I felt very cut off from a lot.”
Perhaps that’s why we’re now seeing a slightly more nostalgic side to her.
Madge is re-recording her classic hits and working on the film of her life – which currently runs up until the Blonde Ambition tour. The casting call has gone out for an actress to play the younger her, with Ozark’s Julia Garner one of many mooted.
For as a woman who had a hit with Express Yourself, Madonna’s certainly expressed a lot of different versions.
In an interview to mark her 60th birthday, the superstar looked back on Madonna Louise Ciccone, the girl who first came to New York. She recalled: “There was no pressure for me to be anything specifically, to sound a certain way, look a certain way. What I try to do now is to remember that girl.”
Who is that girl? Sounds like we’re not the only ones desperately seeking that answer.