The Memoir Of Ms. Butterfly

Madonna Louise Ciccone was born on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan, to Catholic parents Madonna Louise (née Fortin) and Silvio Anthony “Tony” Ciccone. Her father’s parents were Italian emigrants from Pacentro, while her mother was of French-Canadian descent. Tony Ciccone worked on military projects as an optics engineer for Chrysler and General Dynamics. Since Madonna had the same name as her mother, family members called her “Little Nonnie. Her mother died of breast cancer on December 1, 1963. She later adopted Veronica as a confirmation name when getting confirmed into the Catholic Church in 1966.

 Madonna was raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) alongside her two older brothers, Anthony and Martin, and three younger siblings, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie. In 1966, Tony married the family’s housekeeper Joan Gustafson. They had two children, Jennifer and Mario. Madonna resented her father for getting remarried and began rebelling against him, which strained their relationship for many years afterward.

 Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist in the rock bands Breakfast Club and Emmy, she rose to solo stardom with her debut studio album, Madonna (1983).

 She followed it with a series of successful albums, including all-time bestsellers Like a Virgin (1984), True Blue (1986), and The Immaculate Collection (1990), as well as Grammy Award winners Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). In addition, Madonna has amassed many chart-topping singles throughout her career, including “Like a Virgin. La Isla Bonita, Like a Prayer”, “Vogue,” Take a Bow, “Frozen, Music Hung Up, and “4 Minutes.

Madonna’s popularity was enhanced by roles in films such as Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Dick Tracy (1990), A League of Their Own (1992), and Evita (1996). While Evita won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, many other films could have been better received. As a businesswoman, Madonna founded the company Maverick in 1992. It included Maverick Records, one of history’s most successful artist-run labels. Her other ventures include fashion brands, written works, health clubs, and filmmaking. In addition, she contributes to various charities, having founded the Ray of Light Foundation in 1998 and Raising Malawi in 2006.

With sales of over 300 million records worldwide, Madonna is the best-selling female recording artist of all time. She is the most successful solo Artist in the history of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. She has become the number-one single woman in Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. With over U.S. $1.5 billion in revenue from her concert tickets, she remains the highest-grossing female touring Artist worldwide.

 Forbes has named Madonna the annual top-earning female musician 11 times across four decades (the 1980s–2010s). She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, her first year of eligibility. In addition, Madonna was ranked as the most incredible woman in Music by VH1 and the most outstanding music video artist ever by MTV and Billboard. Rolling Stone also listed her among its most significant artists and greatest songwriters of all time.

Madonna attended St. Frederick’s, St. Andrew’s Catholic Elementary, and West Middle School. She was known for her high grade point average and achieved notoriety for her unconventional behavior. For example, Madonna would perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways between classes, dangle her knees from the monkey bars during recess, and pull up her skirt so the boys could see her underwear.

  She later admitted to seeing herself in her youth as a “lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn’t rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn’t shave my underarms or wear make-up like ordinary girls do. But I studied, and I got good grades… I wanted to be somebody.

Madonna’s father put her in classical piano lessons. Still, she later convinced him to allow her to take ballet lessons. Christopher Flynn, her ballet teacher, persuaded her to pursue a dance career. Madonna later attended Rochester Adams High School and became a straight-A student as well as a member of its cheerleading squad. After graduating in January 1976, she received a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan. She studied at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, over the summer.

 In 1978, Madonna dropped out of college and relocated to New York City. She said of her move to New York, “It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done. Madonna soon found an apartment in the Alphabet City neighborhood of the East Village and had little money while working at Dunkin’ Donuts and with modern dance troupes, taking classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and eventually performing with Pearl Lang Dance Theater.

 She also studied dance under the tutelage of Martha Graham, the noted American dancer and choreographer. In addition, Madonna started to work as a backup dancer for other established artists. One night, while returning from a rehearsal, two men held her at knifepoint and forced her to perform fellatio. She later found the incident “a taste of my weakness; it showed me that I still could not save myself despite all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it.

In 1979, Madonna became romantically involved with musician Dan Gilroy. Shortly after meeting him, she successfully auditioned to perform in Paris with French disco artist Patrick Hernandez as his backup singer and dancer. During her three months with Hernandez’s troupe, she also traveled to Tunisia before returning to New York in August 1979. Madonna moved into an abandoned synagogue where Gilroy lived and rehearsed in Corona, Queens.

 Together they formed her first band, the Breakfast Club, for which Madonna sang and played drums and guitar. While with the band, Madonna briefly worked as a coat-check girl at the Russian Tea Room, and she made her acting debut in the low-budget indie film A Certain Sacrifice, which was not released until 1985.

 In 1980, Madonna left the Breakfast Club with drummer Stephen Bray, her boyfriend in Michigan, and they formed the band Emmy and the Emmys. They rekindled their romance and moved into the Music Building in Manhattan. The two began writing songs together, and they recorded a four-song demo tape in November 1980, but soon after, Madonna decided to promote herself as a solo artist.

In March 1981, Camille Barbone, who ran Gotham Records in the Music Building, signed Madonna to a contract with Gotham and worked as her manager until February 1982. Madonna frequented nightclubs to get disc jockeys to play her demo. DJ Mark Kamins at Danceteria became interested in her Music, and they began dating. Kamins arranged a meeting with Madonna and Seymour Stein, the president of Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. Madonna signed a deal for three singles, with an option for an album.

Kamins produced her debut single, “Everybody, ” released in October 1982. In December 1982, Madonna performed the song live for the first time at Danceteria. She made her first television appearance performing “Everybody” on Dancin’ On Air in January 1983. In February 1983, she promoted the single with nightclub performances in the United Kingdom.

 Her second single, “Burning Up, was released in March 1983. Both singles reached number three on Billboard magazine’s Hot Dance Club Songs chart. During this period, Madonna was in a relationship with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and living at his loft in SoHo.

 Basquiat introduced her to art curator Diego Cortez, who had managed some punk bands and co-founded the Mudd Club. Madonna invited Cortez to be her manager, but he declined.

Following the success of the singles, Warner hired Reggie Lucas to produce her self-titled debut album, Madonna. However, Madonna was dissatisfied with the completed tracks and disagreed with Lucas’ production techniques, so she sought additional help.

 She asked John “Jellybean” Benitez, the resident D.J. at Fun House, to help finish the album’s production, and a romance ensued. Benitez remixed most of the tracks and produced Holiday, her first international top-ten song.

 The album was released in July 1983 and peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200. In addition, it yielded two top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Borderline and Lucky Star. Then, in the fall of 1983, Madonna’s new manager, Freddy DeMann, secured a meeting with film producer Jon Peters, who asked her to play the part of a club singer in the romantic drama Vision Quest.

In January 1984, Madonna gained more exposure by performing on American Bandstand and Top of the Pops. Her image, performances, and music videos influenced young girls and women. As a result, Madonna’s style became one of the female fashion trends of the 1980s.

 Created by stylist and jewelry designer Maripol, the look consisted of lace tops, skirts over capri pants, fishnet stockings, jewelry bearing the crucifix, bracelets, and bleached hair.

 Madonna’s popularity continued to rise globally with the release of her second studio album, Like a Virgin, in November 1984. It became her first number-one album in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. Like a Virgin became the first album by a female to sell over five million copies in the U.S.

 It was later certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and has sold over 21 million copies worldwide.

The album’s title track was it’s first single and topped the Hot 100 chart for six consecutive weeks. It attracted the attention of conservative organizations who complained that the song and its accompanying video promoted premarital sex and undermined family values. Moralists sought to have the Music and video banned.

 Madonna received massive media coverage for her performance Like a Virgin” at the first 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Wearing a wedding dress and white gloves, Madonna appeared on stage atop a giant wedding cake and then rolled around suggestively on the floor. MTV retrospectively considered it one of the “most iconic” pop performances ever. The second single, Material Girl, reached number two on the Hot 100. While filming the single’s music video, Madonna started dating actor Sean Penn. They married on her birthday in 1985.

In April 1985, Madonna embarked on her first concert tour in North America, the Virgin Tour, with the Beastie Boys as her opening act. The time saw the peak of Madonna’s wannabe phenomenon, with many female attendees dressing like her.

 At that time, she released two more hits, “Angel” and Dress You Up, making all four singles from the album peak inside the top five on the Hot 100 chart. Then, in July, Penthouse and Playboy magazines published several nude photos of Madonna, taken when she moonlighted as an art model in 1978.

 She had posed for the photographs because she needed money then and was paid as little as $25 a session. The publication of the photos caused a media uproar, but Madonna remained “unapologetic and defiant. The photographs were ultimately sold for up to $100,000. She mentioned these events at the 1985 outdoor Live Aid charity concert, saying she would not remove her jacket because “[the media] might hold it against me ten years from now.

In June 1986, Madonna released her third studio album, True Blue, inspired by and dedicated to her husband, Penn. Rolling Stone was impressed with the effort, writing that the album “sound[s] as if it comes from the heart. Five singles were released—Live to Tell, “Papa Don’t Preach, True Blue,” Open Your Heart,” and La Isla Bonita”—all of which reached number one in the U.S. or the U.K. The album topped the charts in 28 countries worldwide, an unprecedented achievement at the time, and remains Madonna’s bestselling studio album, with sales of 25 million copies.

 True Blue was featured in the 1992 edition of Guinness World Records as the bestselling album by a woman. Madonna starred in the critically panned film Shanghai Surprise in 1986, for which she received her first Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress. She made her theatrical debut in a production of David Rabe’s Goose and Tom-Tom; the film and play co-starred Penn. The following year, Madonna was featured in Who’s That Girl. She contributed four songs to its soundtrack, including the title track and Causing a Commotion. Madonna embarked on the Who’s That Girl World Tour in June 1987, which continued until September.

 It broke several attendance records, including over 130,000 people in a show near Paris, which was then a record for the highest-attended female concert of all time. Later that year, she released a remix album of past hits, You Can Dance, which reached number 14 on the Billboard 200. After a tumultuous two years marriage, Madonna filed for divorce from Penn on December 4, 1987, but withdrew the petition a few weeks later.

She made her Broadway debut in the production of Speed-the-Plow at the Royale Theatre from May to August 1988. According to the Associated Press, Madonna filed an assault report against Penn after an alleged incident at their Malibu home during the New Year’s weekend. Madonna filed for divorce on January 5, 1989; the following week, she asked that no criminal charges be pressed.

In January 1989, Madonna signed an endorsement deal with soft-drink manufacturer Pepsi. She debuted Like a Prayer in one Pepsi commercial, the lead single and title track from her fourth studio album. The music video featured Catholic symbols such as stigmata, a burning cross, and a dream of making love to a saint, leading the Vatican to condemn the video. Religious groups sought to ban the commercial and boycott Pepsi products. Pepsi revoked the commercial and canceled her sponsorship contract. Nevertheless, “Like a Prayer” topped the charts in many countries, becoming her seventh number-one on the Hot 100.

Madonna co-wrote and co-produced the album Like a Prayer with Patrick Leonard, Stephen Bray, and Prince. Music critic J. D. Considine from Rolling Stone praised it as “as close to art as pop Music gets … proof not only that Madonna should be taken seriously as an artist but that hers is one of the most compelling voices of the Eighties. Like a Prayer peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 15 million copies worldwide. Other successful singles from the album were Express Yourself and Cherish, which peaked at number two in the U.S. and the U.K. top-five “Dear Jessie” and the U.S. top-ten Keep It Together. By the end of the 1980s, Madonna was named the “Artist of the Decade” by MTV, Billboard, and Musician magazine.

Madonna starred as Breathless Mahoney in the film Dick Tracy (1990), with Warren Beatty playing the title role. The film was number one at the U.S. box office for two weeks. In addition, Madonna received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress. She released the soundtrack album, I’m Breathless, to accompany the film, which included songs inspired by the film’s 1930s setting. It also featured the U.S. number-one song “Vogue” and “Sooner or Later. While shooting the film, Madonna began a relationship with Beatty, which dissolved shortly after the premiere. In April 1990, Madonna began her Blond Ambition World Tour, which ended in August. Rolling Stone called it an “elaborately choreographed, sexually provocative extravaganza” and proclaimed it “the best tour of 1990”. However, the tour generated strong negative reactions from religious groups to her “Like a Virgin” performance, during which two male dancers caressed her body before she simulated masturbation. In response, Madonna said, “The tour in no way hurts anybody’s sentiments. It’s for open minds and gets them to see sexuality differently. Their own and others”. The live recording of the tour won Madonna her first Grammy Award in the Best Long Form Music Video category.

The Immaculate Collection, Madonna’s first greatest-hits compilation album, was released in November 1990. It included two new songs, “Justify My Love” and “Rescue Me.” The album was certified diamond by RIAA and sold over 30 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist in history. “Justify My Love” reached number one in the U.S., becoming her ninth number-one on the Hot 100. Her then-boyfriend model Tony Ward co-starred in the music video, which featured scenes of sadomasochism, bondage, same-sex kissing, and brief nudity. The video was deemed too sexually explicit for MTV and was banned from the network. Her first documentary film, Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside North America), was released in May 1991. Chronicling her Blond Ambition World Tour, it became the highest-grossing documentary of all time (surpassed eleven years later by Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine).

In 1992, Madonna starred in A League of Their Own as Mae Mordabito, a baseball player on an all-women’s team. It reached number one at the box office and became the tenth-highest-grossing film of the Year in the U.S. She recorded the film’s theme song, “This Used to Be My Playground, which became her tenth number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, the most by any female artist at the time. In April, Madonna founded her own entertainment company, Maverick, consisting of a record company (Maverick Records), a film production company (Maverick Films), and associated music publishing, television broadcasting, book publishing, and merchandising divisions. The deal was a joint venture with Time Warner and paid Madonna an advance of $60 million. In addition, it gave her 20% royalties from the music proceedings, the highest rate in the industry at the time, equaled only by Michael Jackson’s royalty rate established a year earlier with Sony. Her company later became one of history’s most successful artist-run labels, producing multi-platinum artists such as Alanis Morissette and Michelle Branch. Later that year, Madonna co-sponsored the first museum retrospective of her former boyfriend, Jean-Michel Basquiat, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

n October 1992, Madonna simultaneously released her fifth studio album, Erotica, and her coffee table book, Sex. Consisting of sexually provocative and explicit images photographed by Steven Meisel, the book received strong adverse reactions from the media and the general public. Still, it sold 1.5 million copies at $50 each in days. The widespread backlash overshadowed Erotica, which ended up as her lowest-selling album. Despite positive reviews, it became her first studio album since her debut, not to score any chart-topper in the U.S. However, the album entered the Billboard 200 at number two and yielded the Hot 100 top-ten hits “Erotica” and “Deeper and Deeper. Madonna continued her provocative imagery in the 1993 erotic thriller Body of Evidence, which contained scenes of sadomasochism and bondage. It was poorly received by critics. She also starred in the film Dangerous Game, released straight to video in North America. The New York Times described the film as “angry and painful, and the pain feels real.

In September 1993, Madonna embarked on the Girlie Show, dressed as a whip-cracking dominatrix surrounded by topless dancers. In Puerto Rico, she rubbed the island’s flag between her legs on stage, resulting in outrage among the audience. In March 1994, she appeared as a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, using profanity that required television censorship, handing Letterman a pair of her panties and asking him to smell it. The releases of her sexually explicit book, album, and film, and the aggressive appearance on Letterman made critics question Madonna as a sexual renegade. Critics and fans reacted negatively, commenting that “she had gone too far” and her career was over. Around this time, Madonna briefly dated basketball player Dennis Rodman and rapper Tupac Shakur.

Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli described her ballad “I’ll Remember” (1994) as an attempt to tone down her provocative image. The song was recorded for Alek Keshishian’s 1994 film With Honors. Next, she made a subdued appearance with Letterman at an awards show. Then, she appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno after realizing that she needed to change her musical direction to sustain her popularity. Madonna’s sixth studio album, Bedtime Stories (1994), employed a softer image to improve public perception. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. It generated two U.S. top-five hits, “Secret” and “Take a Bow,” the latter topping the Hot 100 for seven weeks, the most extended period of any Madonna single. Something to Remember, a collection of ballads, was released in November 1995. The album featured three new songs: “You’ll See,” “One More Chance,” and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You. An enthusiastic collector of modern art, Madonna sponsored the first major retrospective of Tina Modotti’s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1995. The following year, she supported an exhibition of Basquiat’s paintings at the Serpentine Gallery in London. She sponsored artist Cindy Sherman’s retrospective at the MoMA in New York the following Year.

In February 1996, Madonna began filming the musical Evita in Argentina. For a long time, Madonna had desired to play Argentine political leader Eva Perón and wrote to director Alan Parker to explain why she would be perfect for the part. After securing the title role, she received vocal coaching and learned about the history of Argentina and Perón. Unfortunately, Madonna became ill several times during filming after discovering she was pregnant and from the intense emotional effort required with the scene. Nevertheless, upon Evita‘s release in December 1996, Madonna’s performance received praise from film critics. Zach Conner of Time magazine remarked, “It’s a relief that Evita is pretty damn fine, well cast, and handsomely visualized. Madonna once again confounds our expectations. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the role.

The Evita soundtrack, containing songs primarily performed by Madonna, was released as a double album. It included “You Must Love Me” and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”; the latter reached number one in European countries. In addition, Madonna was presented with the Artist Achievement Award by Tony Bennett at the 1996 Billboard Music Awards. On October 14, 1996, she gave birth to Lourdes “Lola” Maria Ciccone Leon, her daughter, with fitness trainer Carlos Leon. Biographer Mary Cross writes that although Madonna often worried that her pregnancy would harm Evita, she reached some important personal goals: “Now 38 years old, Madonna had, at last, triumphed on screen and achieved her dream of having a child, both in the same Year. Moreover, she had reached another turning point in her career, reinventing herself and her image with the public. Her relationship with Carlos Leon ended in May 1997, and she declared they were “better off as best friends.

After Lourdes’s birth, Madonna became involved in Eastern mysticism and Kabbalah, introduced to her by actress Sandra Bernhard. Her seventh studio album, Ray of Light (1998), reflected this change in her perception and image. She collaborated with electronica producer William Orbit and wanted to create a sound that could blend dance music with pop and British rock. American music critic Ann Powers explained that what Madonna searched for with Orbit “was the lushness she wanted for this record. Techno and rave were happening in the 90s and had a lot of different forms. There was very experimental, more complex stuff like Aphex Twin. There was party stuff like Fatboy Slim. That’s not what Madonna wanted for this. She wanted something more like a singer-songwriter, really. And William Orbit provided her with that.

The album garnered critical acclaim, with Slant Magazine calling it “one of the great pop masterpieces of the ’90s” Ray of Light was honored with four Grammy Awards—including Best Pop Album and Best Dance Recording—and was nominated for both Album of the Year and Record of the Year. In addition, rolling Stone listed it among “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. Commercially, the album peaked at number one in numerous countries and sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. The album’s lead single, “Frozen,” became Madonna’s first single to debut at number one in the U.K. In contrast, in the U.S., it became her sixth number-two single, setting another record for Madonna as the Artist with the most number-two hits. The second single, “Ray of Light,” debuted at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, the 1998 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records documented that “no female artist has sold more records than Madonna around the world.

Madonna founded the Ray of Light Foundation, which focused on women, education, global development, and humanitarianism. She recorded the single “Beautiful Stranger” for the 1999 film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which earned her a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. In addition, Madonna starred in the 2000 comedy-drama film The Next Best Thing, directed by John Schlesinger. The film opened at number two at the U.S. box office with $5.9 million grossed in its first week, but this quickly diminished. She also contributed two songs to the film’s soundtrack—a cover of Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie” and an original song “Time Stood Still”—the former became her ninth U.K. number-one single.

Madonna released her eighth studio album, Music, in September 2000. It featured elements from the electronica-inspired Ray of Light era and, like its predecessor, received acclaim from critics. Collaborating with French producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, Madonna commented: “I love to work with the weirdos that no one knows about—the people who have raw talent and are making music unlike anyone else. Music is the future of sound. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic felt that “Music blows by in a kaleidoscopic rush of color, technique, style, and substance. It has so many depths and layers that it’s easily as self-aware and earnest as Ray of Light. The album took the number-one position in more than 20 countries worldwide and sold four million copies in the first ten days. In the U.S., Music debuted at the top and became her first number-one album in eleven years since Like a Prayer. In addition, it produced three singles: the Hot 100 number-one “Music, Don’t Tell Me” and “What It Feels Like for a Girl. The music video for “What It Feels Like for a Girl” depicted Madonna committing crime and vandalism and was banned by MTV and VH1.

Madonna met director Guy Ritchie in the summer of 1998 and gave birth to their son Rocco John Ritchie in Los Angeles on August 11, 2000. Unfortunately, Rocco and Madonna suffered complications from the delivery due to her experiencing placenta praevia. He was christened at Dornoch Cathedral in Dornoch, Scotland, on December 21, 2000. Madonna married Ritchie the following day at nearby Skibo Castle. After an eight-year absence from touring, Madonna started her Drowned World Tour in June 2001. The tour visited cities in the U.S. and Europe and was the highest-grossing concert tour of the Year by a solo artist, earning $75 million from 47 sold-out shows. She also released her second greatest-hits collection, GHV2, which compiled 15 singles during the second decade of her recording career. The album debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 and sold seven million units worldwide.

Madonna starred in the film Swept Away, directed by Ritchie. Released direct-to-video in the U.K., the film was a commercial and critical failure. In May 2002, she appeared in London in the West End play Up For Grabs at the Wyndhams Theatre (billed as ‘Madonna Ritchie,’ to universally bad reviews and was described as “the evening’s biggest disappointment” by one. That October, she released Die Another Day, the title song of the James Bond film Die Another Day, in which she had a cameo role, described by Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian as “incredibly wooden. Nevertheless, the song reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song.

In 2003, Madonna collaborated with fashion photographer Steven Klein for an exhibition installation named X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS, which ran from March to May in New York’s Deitch Projects gallery and traveled the world in an edited form. The same year, Madonna released her ninth studio album, American Life, based on her observations of American society. She explained that the record was “like a trip down memory lane, looking back at everything I’ve accomplished and all the things I once valued and all the things that were important to me.” Larry Flick from The Advocate felt that “American Life is an album that is among her most adventurous and lyrically intelligent” while condemning it as “a lazy, half-arsed effort to sound and take her seriously. The original music video of its title track caused controversy due to its violence and anti-war imagery and was withdrawn after the 2003 invasion of Iraq started. In addition, Madonna voluntarily censored herself for the first time in her career due to the country’s political climate, saying that “there was a lynch mob mentality that was going on that wasn’t pretty and I have children to protect. As a result, the song stalled at number 37 on the Hot 100, while the album became her lowest-selling album, with four million copies worldwide.

Madonna gave another provocative performance later that Year at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards when she kissed singers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera while singing the track “Hollywood. In October 2003, she provided guest vocals on Spears’ single “Me Against the Music.” It was followed by the release of Remixed & Revisited. The E.P. contained remixed versions of American Life songs and “Your Honesty,” a previously unreleased track from the Bedtime Stories recording sessions. Madonna also signed a contract with Callaway Arts & Entertainment to be the author of five children’s books. The first of these books, The English Roses, was published in September 2003. The story was about four English schoolgirls and their envy and jealousy of each other. The book debuted at the top of The New York Times Best Seller list and became the fastest-selling children’s picture book ever. Madonna donated all of its proceeds to a children’s charity.

The following year Madonna and Maverick sued Warner Music Group and its former parent company Time Warner, claiming that mismanagement of resources and poor bookkeeping had cost the company millions of dollars. In return, Warner filed a countersuit alleging that Maverick had lost tens of millions of dollars on its own. The dispute was resolved when the Maverick shares, owned by Madonna and Ronnie Dashev, were purchased by Warner. Madonna and Dashev’s company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warner Music, but Madonna was still signed to Warner under a separate recording contract.

In mid-2004, Madonna embarked on the Re-Invention World Tour in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. It became the highest-grossing tour of 2004, earning around $120 million, and became the subject of her documentary I’m Going to Tell You a Secret. In November 2004, she was inducted into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame as one of its five founding members, along with the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, and U2. In addition, rolling Stone ranked her at number 36 in its special issue of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, featuring an article about her written by Britney Spears. In January 2005, Madonna performed a cover version of the John Lennon song “Imagine” at Tsunami Aid. She also performed at the Live 8 benefit concert in London in July 2005.

Her tenth studio album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, was released in November 2005. Musically the album was structured like a club set composed by a D.J. It was acclaimed by critics, with Keith Caulfield from Billboard commenting that the album was a “welcome return to form for the Queen of Pop. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. Confessions on a Dance Floor and its lead single, “Hung Up,” reached number one in 40 and 41 countries, respectively, earning a place in Guinness World Records. The song contained a sample of ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”, only the second time that ABBA has allowed their work to be used. ABBA songwriter Björn Ulvaeus remarked, “It is a wonderful track—100 percent solid pop music..”Sorry,” the second single, became Madonna’s twelfth number-one single in the U.K.

Madonna embarked on the Confessions Tour in May 2006, which had a global audience of 1.2 million and grossed over $193.7 million, becoming the highest-grossing tour to that date for a female artist. Madonna used religious symbols, such as the crucifix and Crown of Thorns, in the performance of “Live to Tell.” It caused the Russian Orthodox Church and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia to urge all their members to boycott her concert. At the same time, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) officially announced that Madonna had sold over 200 million copies of her albums worldwide.

While on tour, Madonna founded the charitable organization Raising Malawi and partially funded an orphanage in and traveling to that country. While there, she adopted a boy named David Banda in October 2006. The adoption raised a strong public reaction because Malawian law requires would-be parents to reside in Malawi for one year before adopting, which Madonna did not do. She addressed this on The Oprah Winfrey Show, saying that Malawi had no written adoption laws that regulated foreign adoption. Madonna described how Banda suffered from pneumonia after surviving malaria and tuberculosis when they first met. Banda’s biological father, Yohane, commented, “These so-called human rights activists are harassing me every day, threatening me that I am not aware of what I am doing … They want me to support their court case, a thing I cannot do for I know what I agreed with Madonna and her husband.” The adoption was finalized in May 2008.

Madonna released and performed the song “Hey You” at the London Live Earth concert in July 2007. She announced her departure from Warner Bros. Records and declared a new $120 million, ten-year 360 deal with Live Nation. In 2008, Madonna produced and wrote I Am Because We Are, a documentary on the problems faced by Malawians; it was directed by Nathan Rissman, who worked as Madonna’s gardener. She also directed her first film, Filth and Wisdom. The plot of the film revolves around three friends and their aspirations. The Times said she had “done herself proud,” while The Daily Telegraph described the film as “not an entirely unpromising first effort [but] Madonna would do well to hang on to her day job. On March 10, 2008, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility. She did not sing at the ceremony but asked fellow Hall of Fame inductees and Michigan natives, the Stooges, to perform her songs “Burning Up” and “Ray of Light.

Madonna released her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, in April 2008. Containing R&B and urban pop influences, the songs on Hard Candy were autobiographical and saw Madonna collaborating with Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, and Nate “Danja” Hills. The album debuted at number one in 37 countries and on the Billboard 200. Caryn Ganz from Rolling Stone complimented it as an “impressive taste of her upcoming tour, while BBC correspondent Mark Savage panned it as “an attempt to harness the urban market.

“4 Minutes” was released as the album’s lead single and peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Madonna’s 37th top-ten hit on the chart pushed her past Elvis Presley as the Artist with the most top-ten hits. In the U.K., she retained her record for the number-one singles for a female artist, “4 Minutes,” becoming her thirteenth. At the 23rd Japan Gold Disc Awards, Madonna received her fifth Artist of the Year trophy from the Recording Industry Association of Japan, the most for any artist. To further promote the album, she embarked on the Sticky & Sweet Tour, her first major venture with Live Nation. With a total gross of $408 million, it ended up as the second highest-grossing tour of all time, behind the Rolling Stones’s A Bigger Bang Tour. It remained the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist until Roger Waters’ The Wall Live surpassed it in 2013.

In July 2008, Christopher Ciccone released a book titled Life with My Sister Madonna, which caused a rift between Madonna and him because of unsolicited publication. By the fall, Madonna filed for divorce from Ritchie, citing irreconcilable differences. In December 2008, Madonna’s spokesperson announced that Madonna had agreed to a divorce settlement with Ritchie, the terms of which granted him between £50–60 million ($68.49–82.19 million), a figure that included the couple’s London pub and residence and Wiltshire estate in England. The marriage was dissolved by District Judge Reid by decree nisi at the clinical Principal Registry of the Family Division in High Holborn, London. They entered a compromise agreement for Rocco and David, then aged eight and three, respectively, and divided the children’s time between Ritchie’s London home and Madonna’s in New York, where the two were joined by Lourdes. Soon after, Madonna applied to adopt Chifundo “Mercy” James from Malawi in May 2009; the country’s High Court rejected the application because Madonna was not a resident there. However, she re-appealed, and on June 12, 2009, the Supreme Court of Malawi granted her the right to adopt Mercy.

Madonna concluded her contract with Warner by releasing her third greatest-hits album, Celebration, in September 2009. It contained the new songs “Celebration” and “Revolver,” along with 34 hits spanning her musical career with the label. The celebration reached number one in several countries, including Canada, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. In addition, she appeared at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards to speak in tribute to the deceased pop singer Michael Jackson. As a result, Madonna ended the 2000s as the bestselling single Artist of the Decade in the U.S. and the most-played Artist in the U.K. Billboard also announced her as the third top-touring Artist of the decade—behind only the Rolling Stones and U2—with a gross of over $801 million, 6.3 million attendance, and 244 sell-outs of 248 shows.

Madonna performed at the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief concert in January 2010. Her third live album, Sticky & Sweet Tour, was released in April, debuting at number ten on the Billboard 200. It also became her 20th top-ten on the Oricon Albums Chart, breaking the Beatles’ record for the most top-ten album by an international act in Japan. Madonna granted the American television show Glee the rights to her entire music catalog, and the producers created an episode featuring her songs exclusively. She also collaborated with Lourdes. In addition, she released the Material Girl clothing line, inspired by her punk-girl style when she rose to fame in the 1980s. In October, she opened a series of fitness centers named Hard Candy Fitness worldwide. Three months later, a second fashion brand, Truth or Dare, included footwear, perfumes, underclothing, and accessories.

Madonna directed her second feature film, W.E., a biographical account of the affair between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Co-written with Alek Keshishian, the film premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September 2011. The critical and commercial response to the film was negative. Madonna contributed the ballad Masterpiece for the film’s soundtrack, which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

In February 2012, Madonna headlined the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her performance was visualized by Cirque Du Soleil and Jamie King and featured special guests LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., and CeeLo Green. It became the then-most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history with 114 million viewers, higher than the game itself. During the event, she performed “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” the lead single from her twelfth studio album, MDNA. It became her record-extending 38th top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100.

MDNA was released in March 2012 and saw collaboration with various producers, including William Orbit and Martin Solveig. It was her first release under her three-album deal with Interscope Records, which she signed as a part of her 360 deal with Live Nation. She was signed to the record label since Live Nation could not distribute music recordings. MDNA became Madonna’s fifth consecutive studio record to debut at the top of the Billboard 200. The MDNA Tour promoted the album from May to December 2012. The tour featured controversial subjects such as violence, firearms, human rights, nudity, and politics. With a gross of $305.2 million from 88 sold-out shows, it became the highest-grossing tour of 2012 and the then-tenth highest-grossing tour of all time. In addition, Forbes named Madonna the top-earning celebrity of the year, earning an estimated $125 million.

Madonna collaborated with Steven Klein and directed a 17-minute film, secret project revolution, released on BitTorrent in September 2013. With the film, she launched the Art for Freedom initiative, which helped to promote “art and free speech as a means to address persecution and injustice across the globe. The website for the project included over 3,000 art-related submissions since its inception, with Madonna regularly monitoring and enlisting other artists like David Blaine and Katy Perry as guest curators.

By 2013, Madonna’s Raising Malawi had built ten schools to educate 4,000 children in Malawi at a value of $400,000. When Madonna visited the schools in April 2013, President of Malawi Joyce Banda accused her of exaggerating the charity’s contribution. Madonna was saddened by Banda’s statement but clarified that she had “no intention of being distracted by these ridiculous allegations.” However, it was later confirmed that Banda had not approved the statement released by her press team. Madonna also visited her hometown Detroit in May 2014 and donated funds to help with the city’s bankruptcy. The same year, her business ventures extended to skin care products with the launch of MDNA Skin in Tokyo, Japan.

Madonna’s thirteenth studio album, Rebel Heart, was released in March 2015, three months after its thirteen demos leaked onto the Internet. Unlike her previous efforts, which involved only a few people, Madonna worked with many collaborators, including Avicii, Diplo, and Kanye West. Introspection was listed as one of the foundational themes prevalent on the record, along with “genuine statements of personal and careerist reflection. Madonna explained to Jon Pareles of The New York Times that although she has never looked back at her past endeavors, reminiscing about it felt suitable for Rebel Heart. Music critics responded positively to the album, calling it her best effort in a decade.

From September 2015 to March 2016, Madonna embarked on the Rebel Heart Tour to promote the album. The tour traveled throughout North America, Europe, and Asia and was Madonna’s first visit to Australia in 23 years, where she also performed a one-off show for her fans. Rebel Heart Tour grossed $169.8 million from the 82 shows, with over 1.045 million ticket sales. While on tour, Madonna engaged in a legal battle with Ritchie over the custody of their son Rocco. The dispute started when Rocco decided to continue living in England with Ritchie when the tour visited, while Madonna wanted him to travel with her. As a result, court hearings took place in New York and London. After multiple deliberations, Madonna withdrew her application for custody and resolved the matter privately.

In October 2016, Billboard named Madonna its Woman of the Year. Her “blunt and brutally honest” speech about ageism and sexism at the ceremony received widespread coverage in the media. The following month Madonna, who actively supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, performed an impromptu acoustic concert at Washington Square Park to support Clinton’s campaign. Upset that Donald Trump won the election, Madonna spoke out against him at the Women’s March on Washington a day after his inauguration. She sparked controversy when she said she “thought a lot about blowing up the White House. The following day, Madonna asserted she was “not a violent person” and that her words had been “taken wildly out of context.

In February 2017, Madonna adopted four-year-old twin sisters from Malawi named Estere and Stella. She moved to Lisbon, Portugal, in the summer of 2017 with her adoptive children. In July, she opened the Mercy James Institute for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care in Malawi, a children’s hospital built by her Raising Malawi charity. The live album chronicling the Rebel Heart Tour was released in September 2017 and won Best Music Video for Western Artists at the 32nd Japan Gold Disc Award. That month, Madonna launched MDNA Skin in select stores in the United States. A few months earlier, the auction house Gotta Have Rock and Roll had put up Madonna’s personal items like love letters from Tupac Shakur, cassettes, underwear, and a hairbrush for sale. Darlene Lutz, an art dealer who had initiated the auction, was sued by Madonna’s representatives to stop the proceedings. Madonna clarified that her celebrity status “does not obviate my right to maintain my privacy, including about highly personal items.” Madonna lost the case, and the presiding judge ruled in favor of Lutz, who was able to prove that in 2004 Madonna made a legal agreement with her to sell the items.

While living in Lisbon, Madonna met Dino D’Santiago, who introduced her to many local musicians playing fado, morna, and samba. They regularly invited her to their “living room sessions”; thus, she was inspired to make her 14th studio album, Madame X. Madonna produced the album with several musicians, primarily her longtime collaborator Mirwais and Mike Dean. The album was critically well received, with NME deeming it “bold, bizarre, self-referential and unlike anything Madonna has ever done. Released in June 2019, Madame X debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming her ninth number-one album. In addition, all four of its singles—”Medellín,” “Crave,” “I Rise,” and “I Don’t Search I Find”—topped the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, extending her record for most number-one entries on the chart.

The previous month, Madonna appeared as the interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 and performed “Like a Prayer” and then “Future” with rapper Quavo. Her Madame X Tour, an all-theatre tour in select cities across North America and Europe, began on September 17, 2019. In addition to much smaller venues than her previous tours, she implemented a no-phone policy to maximize the intimacy of the concert. According to Pollstar, the tour earned $51.4 million in ticket sales. That December, Madonna started dating Ahlamalik Williams, a dancer who began accompanying her on the Rebel Heart Tour in 2015. However, the Madame X Tour faced several cancellations due to her recurring knee injury. Eventually, it ended abruptly on March 8, 2020, three days before its planned final date, after the French government banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She later admitted to testing positive for coronavirus antibodies and donated $1 million to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund research creating a new vaccine.

Madonna and Missy Elliott provided guest vocals on Dua Lipa’s single “Levitating” from Lipa’s 2020 remix album Club Future Nostalgia. She also started work on a film biopic about her life, which she intended to direct. Erin Cressida Wilson and Diablo Cody worked on the script at various points, and Julia Garner was cast as Madonna before the project was abandoned. Madonna released Madame X, a documentary film chronicling the tour of the same name, on Paramount+ in October 2021. On her 63rd birthday, she officially announced her return to Warner in a global partnership that grants the label her entire recorded music catalog, including the last three albums released under Interscope. Under the contract, Madonna launched a series of catalog reissues beginning in 2022 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her recording career. A remix album titled Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones was released on August 19, with a 16-track abridged edition being available for streaming since June 24. Consisting of her 50 number-one songs on Billboard‘s Dance Club Songs chart, the remix album highlighted “how meaningful dance music has always been” to Madonna’s career and became her 23rd top-ten album on the Billboard 200.

In September 2022, Madonna released “Hung Up on Tokischa,” a remix of “Hung Up” featuring rapper Tokischa. The song utilizes dembow. On December 29, 2022, Madonna released the demo version of “Back That Up to the Beat” to all digital outlets. The song was initially recorded in 2015 sessions, with an alternative version being released on the deluxe 2-CD version of her 2019 Madame X album.

Madonna has built a legacy that transcends music and has been studied by sociologists, historians, and other scholars, contributing to the rise of Madonna studies, a subfield of American cultural studies. According to Rodrigo Fresán, “Saying that Madonna is just a pop star is as inappropriate as saying that Coca-Cola is just a soda. Madonna is one of the classic symbols of Made in USA. Rolling Stone Spain wrote, “She became the first master of viral pop in history, years before the Internet was massively used. Madonna was everywhere; in the almighty music, television channels, ‘radio formulas,’ magazine covers, and even bookstores. A pop dialectic is never seen since the Beatles’ reign, which allowed her to keep on the edge of trend and commerciality. William Langley from The Daily Telegraph felt that “Madonna has changed the world’s social history, has done more things as more different people than anyone else is ever likely to. Professor Diane Pecknold noted that “nearly any poll of the most enormous, most significant, or best in popular culture includes [Madonna’s] name. In 2012, VH1 ranked Madonna as the most incredible woman in music.

Spin writer Bianca Gracie stated, “The ‘Queen of Pop’ isn’t enough to describe Madonna—she is Pop. [She] formulated the blueprint of what a pop star should be. According to Sclafani, “It’s worth noting that before Madonna, most music mega-stars were guy rockers; after her, almost all would be female singers … When the Beatles hit America, they changed the paradigm of performer from solo act to band. Madonna changed it back—with an emphasis on the female.” Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, asserted that “Madonna and the career she carved out for herself made possible virtually every other female pop singer to follow … She certainly raised the standards of all of them … She redefined what the parameters were for female performers.” Andy Bennett and Steve Waksman, authors of The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music (2014), noted that “almost all female pop stars of recent years—Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and others—acknowledge the critical influence of Madonna on their own careers. Madonna has also influenced male artists, inspiring rock frontmen Liam Gallagher of Oasis and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park to become musicians.

Madonna’s use of sexual imagery has benefited her career and catalyzed public discourse on sexuality and feminism. The Times wrote that she had “started a revolution amongst women in music … Her attitudes and opinions on sex, nudity, style, and sexuality forced the public to sit up and take notice. Professor John Fiske noted that Madonna’s sense of empowerment is inextricably connected with the pleasure of exerting some control over the meanings of self, sexuality, and one’s social relations. In Doing Gender in Media, Art, and Culture (2009), the authors noted that Madonna, as a female celebrity, performer, and pop icon, can unsettle standing feminist reflections and debates. According to lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, Madonna represents a woman’s occupancy of what Monique Wittig calls the category of sex as powerful and appears to gleefully embrace the performance of the sexual corvée allotted to women. Professor Sut Jhally has called her “an almost sacred feminist icon.”

Writing for The Guardian, Matt Cain stated that Madonna has “broke[n] down social barriers” and brought marginalized groups to the forefront by frequently featuring LGBT, Latino, and black culture in her works. An author said, “By making culture generally available, Madonna becomes the culture of all social classes.” Canadian professor Karlene Faith gave her point of view, saying that Madonna’s peculiarity is that “she has cruised so freely through so many cultural terrains” and she “has been a ‘cult figure’ within self-propelling subcultures just as she became a major. GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis stated that Madonna “always has and always will be the LGBTQ community’s greatest ally, while The Advocate dubbed her as “the most significant gay icon.

Madonna has received acclaim as a role model for businesswomen, “achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry” and generating over $1.2 billion in sales within the first decade of her career. According to Gini Gorlinski in the book The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time (2010), Madonna’s levels of power and control were “unprecedented” for a woman in the entertainment industry. London Business School academics called her a “dynamic entrepreneur” worth copying; they identified her vision of success, her understanding of the music industry, her ability to recognize her own performance limits (and thus bring in help), her willingness to work hard and her ability to adapt as the keys to her commercial success. Morton wrote that “Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative, and ruthless—somebody who won’t stop until she gets what she wants—and that’s something you can get at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to her.

Madonna’s net worth is estimated between US$590 million to $800 million. Forbes has named her the annual top-earning female musician 11 times across the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. She has sold over 300 million records worldwide. In addition, the Guinness World Records acknowledged her as the bestselling female music artist. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the bestselling female rock artist of the 20th century and the third highest-certified female albums artist in the United States, with 64.5 million certified album units. In addition, she has the most RIAA multi-platinum albums by a female artist, with 12 releases (tying with Barbra Streisand).

Madonna generated over US$1.5 billion from ticket sales of her concert tours throughout her career. According to Billboard Boxscore, she is the highest-grossing female touring Artist of all time, grossing over $1.376 billion between 1990 and 2020. Madonna also remains the only woman in history to have two solo concerts with 100,000 sold tickets; her Who’s That Girl World Tour’s concert in Parc de Sceaux, Paris, drew over 130,000 audiences, while her Girlie Show’s concert in Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, drew over 120,000 audiences. She has also won seven Grammy Awards and twenty MTV Video Music Awards, including the 1986 Video Vanguard Award, for which she became the first female recipient.

According to Billboard, Madonna is the most successful solo Artist in the Hot 100 chart history (second overall behind the Beatles) and the most successful dance club artist ever. With 50 Dance Club Songs chart-toppers, Madonna became the Artist with the most number ones on any singular Billboard chart, pulling ahead of George Strait with 44 number-one songs on the Hot Country Songs chart. She has also scored 38 top-ten singles on the Hot 100; she held the record among all artists for nearly two decades (between 2002 and 2020) before being overtaken by Drake and Taylor Swift in 2022 among females. Internationally, Madonna holds the record for the number-one singles by a female artist in Australia (11), Canada (25), Italy (23), Finland (7), Spain (21), and the United Kingdom (13). In addition, on the 40th anniversary of the GfK Media Control Charts, Madonna was ranked as the most successful singles artist in German chart history.