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A police officer looks at Bale as he stands on the red carpet at London’s “Dark Knight” premiere.

PHOTOS: Bale at London Premerie

PHOTOS: The Dark Knight

PHOTOS: The NYC premiere

Last updated: 3:32 pm
July 22, 2008 
Posted: 9:41 am
July 22, 2008

LONDON — Christian Bale on Tuesday denied allegations of assault made by his mother and sister, hours after the star of “The Dark Knight” was arrested, questioned by London police and released.

The 34-year-old Bale spent four hours at a police station, but was not charged and was released on bail. British media reported that Bale’s mother and sister complained he had assaulted them at the Dorchester Hotel in London on Sunday night, a day before the European premiere of “The Dark Knight.”

Bale’s London-based law firm, Schillings said Bale, issued a statement denying that an assault took place.

“Christian Bale attended a London police station today on a voluntary basis,” the statement read. “Bale, who denies the allegation, cooperated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question, and has left the station without any charge being made against him by the police.”

A woman thought to be Bale’s sister Sharon told reporters “it’s a family matter” from her home in Corfe Mullen, 110 miles southwest of London. A man who answered the door at the home of his mother Jenny Bale in nearby Bournemouth said she did not want to comment.

The Sun newspaper said Sharon and Jenny Bale had made the complaint. Bale, who was born in Wales, has three older sisters: Erin, Sharon, and Louise Bale.

The reports surface just days after “The Dark Knight,” which co-stars the late Heath Ledger as Batman’s nemesis the Joker, took a record $158.4 million at the box office in its opening weekend.

Asked Tuesday whether Bale had been arrested, a London police spokesman did not refer to him by name but said: “A 34-year-old man attended a central London police station this morning by appointment and was arrested in connection with an allegation of assault.”

The spokesman requested anonymity because he is not authorized to be identified under police policy. British police do not name suspects who have not been formally charged.

The force later said in a statement that the man had been released on bail pending further inquiries and told to return in September. It did not specify the date.

The Sun said police did not question the actor Monday because they did not want to interfere with the premiere of the movie, in which he stars as the vigilante crime fighter. The next scheduled stop on the film’s European premiere tour was Barcelona, Spain.

Bale first made a splash as the child star of Steven Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun” in 1987 and as an adult has made his name with intense screen roles. His films include “American Psycho,” “The Machinist” and “Batman Begins.”

In “The Dark Knight,” Bale reprises the role of wealthy playboy Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego Batman, a brooding vigilante superhero still scarred by the murder of his parents.

Bale is also the stepson of author and feminist leader Gloria Steinem. A message left at a number for Steinem was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Bale’s current project is playing John Connor in “Terminator Salvation,” scheduled for filming this week in New Mexico. The film “will continue to shoot with Mr. Bale when he has completed his International tour for ‘The Dark Knight,’” said Lee Anne Muldoon, unit publicist for the movie.

A records check turned up no criminal record for Bale in Los Angeles, where he’s lived with his wife, Sibi Blazic, and their young daughter.

By CHRISTOPER CICCONE
Last updated at 3:00 PM on 14th July 2008

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At Madonna’s 1991 New Year’s Eve party, the lesbian comedian Sandra Bernhard brings her then girlfriend, Ingrid Casares, with her.

A butch version of Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid is boyish and fawnlike, with big slanting doe eyes. She’s tall, thin and extremely cool.  

For the past year, ever since Ingrid met Sandra after one of her shows, they have been an item. But the moment Ingrid meets Madonna – as far as Ingrid is concerned – Sandra is history. 

And Madonna embarks on the deepest, most enduring liaison of her life.

Madonna is spoon fed by friend Ingrid Casares

Madonna could never control Sandra. A woman with her own career, a definite personality and opinions, Sandra has never been Madonna’s puppy dog. Ingrid, however, is another story.

Madonna has never taken well to criticism but now that she is a star, she has no patience with anyone who disagrees with her. Ingrid never will.

A snapshot: Ingrid is having breakfast in Madonna’s Miami home. Madonna is reading Vogue. She comes across a picture of an actress and says to Ingrid: ‘Look at her – she’s so ugly.’

Ingrid takes a brief look at the picture. ‘I don’t think she’s that ugly.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘You are so right, Madonna,’ Ingrid says, ‘she is so ugly.’

Ingrid is the perfect echo for Madonna.  She is a chameleon, never challenging, never confrontational and skilled at asking or answering questions, saying exactly what Madonna needs to hear.

Ingrid knows how to make herself indispensable to Madonna. Ingrid is a great networker and collector of gossip and is happy to pass information on to Madonna. She is always available and, as the daughter of rich parents and independently wealthy, she pays her own way. 

She is at the house early in the morning, ready to work out with Madonna, and willing to shop with her or for her. She can find clothes Madonna wants and if Madonna is in the mood for a man, Ingrid will find one for her.

Until Madonna marries Guy – Ingrid tells me he doesn’t like her – she is the man in Madonna’s life. Or perhaps boy would be more accurate. Ingrid looks like a boy, but because she is a girl she is happy to do girl stuff with Madonna: get her nails done with her, have a massage or a facial with her. And she’s discreet, which is of paramount importance to Madonna.

Above all, Ingrid is no competition for Madonna. Although five years younger, she doesn’t compete for men or women. For more than 15 years, Ingrid will endure in Madonna’s life because she doesn’t need Madonna for money, keeps her mouth shut and adores her without question or limitations. 

It wouldn’t surprise me if my sister and Ingrid are having intimate relations. But Madonna never confirms or denies it.

When they are going to a party together, at the last minute Madonna often tells Ingrid that she can’t ride in her car because there is no room. Ingrid will be devastated. But in a club, Madonna will give Ingrid a big kiss on the lips or cheek, and for the next few months Ingrid will live on that moment. 

One night, the three of us are at a big dinner together. Ingrid goes to take her place next to Madonna, who shakes her head. 

‘No, Gridy, you can’t sit next to me tonight.’ Ingrid makes a face, then quickly masks it with a small smile. She takes her place at the other end of the table. But as the evening progresses, she slowly makes her way back to the seat near Madonna. When the moment is right, she sits down next to her, just as she intended in the first place. 

Then she is happy. Ingrid is very much a part of Madonna’s life now, rather like a wind-up doll that can speak, but whose battery has wound down. Or, if she does speak, she is an ever-willing echo.

BY CHRISTOPHER CICCONE
Last updated at 3:02 PM on 14th July 2008

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It’s 2001 and I am waiting for my last payment from Madonna for my work on the Roxbury house - about £5,000. 

I could really use the money, so when it doesn’t arrive I call her assistant Caresse and ask where it is. She stalls. Within moments, she calls back. 

‘Madonna will make the final payment just as long as you agree to go to Kabbalah. The next meeting is at my house on Wednesday.’ I tell her I’ll think about it.

At a Kabbalah meeting, Madonna and Guy sat on either side of the Bergs, who founded the movement

That same afternoon, Caresse sends over The Power Of Kabbalah - Technology For The Soul, by Yehuda Berg, an official publication of the Kabbalah Centre International.

On the cover, there is a quote from Madonna: ‘No hocus-pocus here. Nothing to do with religious dogma. The ideas in this book are earth-shattering and yet so simple.’ 

I read the book and learn about Kabbalah, a mix of Judaism, Buddhism, Catholicism and a bit of old-fashioned common sense thrown in for good measure. It immediately interests me. 

I begin to think about spiritual issues I’ve long stopped pondering and I am curious. I also realise that I’ve bought into the LA scene far too much and for far too long. Besides, I know that my connection with my sister has weakened and feel that attending Kabbalah may strengthen it once more. 

The following Wednesday I attend the meeting at Caresse’s place - a two-storey colonial brick house, nicely landscaped, on expensive Sunset Plaza. She is only Madonna’s assistant. I can hardly pay my rent, but I push all bitterness aside. 

Inside are Madonna, her real estate broker, her masseuse, her costume designer, her choreographer, two assistants, her acupuncturist and her two dancers. Clearly she’s involved everybody in her life with Kabbalah.

The edict that you have to belong in order to work for her hasn’t yet been formalised, but I suspect it will soon be. I also know that since Kabbalah has become so integral to her existence, she sees less of people who aren’t involved in it. 

We all sit down in a big circle. This meeting - and all that follow - has a particular topic, led by Eitan, our teacher. Then we all discuss it. The meeting lasts a couple of hours. Caresse serves crackers and other snacks.

Most of the time I attend meetings at Demi Moore’s, Caresse’s or Madonna’s, and on some Friday nights I go to the LA Kabbalah Center for Shabbat. There, I am not surprised to find that Madonna and Guy are treated as if they are the uncrowned king and queen of Kabbalah.

One basic premise of Kabbalah is that no individual is entitled to anything more than he or she has earned. Yet every time I attend Shabbat, Madonna and Guy sit on either side of the Bergs, who founded the modern Kabbalah movement. 

‘I’ve been coming here for 15 years, and I’ve never gotten to sit next to the Bergs,’ I hear one woman complaining.

Kabbalah teaches the antithesis of envy, yet I can feel the envy rippling through the people there, particularly when Guy, dressed in white robes, is regularly given the honour of carrying the Torah up to the altar. Madonna has given millions of dollars to Kabbalah.

I attend a 24-hour Kabbalah session with Madonna, Guy and Caresse in Anaheim, California. This is the first big Kabbalah event I’ve attended. Held in a hotel conference hall, the session starts at 7.30pm. All the men are instructed to wear white. 

Madonna and Guy are seated at the top table on the dais, but sit on opposite sides of the table to conform with the rest of the male and female attendees, who, according to tradition, sit on opposite sides of the hall.

As the night proceeds, there are readings from the Torah. I follow as best as I can, but have no idea what is really going on. Even in that environment, for much of the night all eyes are on Madonna, the star of the show.

The Press may report that Guy isn’t as involved in Kabbalah as Madonna, but that isn’t true. In fact, Guy’s world and his conversations nowadays revolve around Kabbalah.

According to our sister Melanie, who still sees Madonna and Guy regularly, they often come over for dinner, but will only talk about Kabbalah. If the conversation strays to any other topic, they lose interest. 

As for Madonna, I believe that Kabbalah has given form to her nebulous world and given her a purpose. Because she is treated differently from all the other acolytes, she feels that her existence has been validated.

After all, she has an entire spiritual movement backing up her decisions. She now believes she has God on her side. Armed with that belief, she often seems to use Kabbalah as a weapon.

She’s not the only one. Demi Moore and I attend a Kabbalah talk that teaches that one shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. The following morning, Demi calls me and says: ‘Wasn’t that a great lesson last night?’

‘Really interesting,’ I say. ‘Well, Christopher, I need help in decorating the new house. Will you help me?’

‘Of course I will.’ The next morning, we meet and talk about the house but Demi doesn’t mention a word about my fee. I’ve committed to doing the job, so I feel I have to follow through. Inside, though, I’m annoyed.

I feel as if Demi has taken the Kabbalah lesson a little too literally. So I go to IKEA, pick all the furniture for the house - all unassembled - and have the bill sent to Demi.

I feel sorry for her assistant, who is left to assemble a truckload of furniture. But I don’t think Demi gets the message or the joke. She is just as friendly as ever and probably assumes that IKEA is my designer of choice.

Abridged from Life With My Sister Madonna, by Christopher Ciccone with Wendy Leigh, published by Simon & Schuster on July 15 at £17.99. To order a copy for £15.99 with free p&p call 0845 606 4213.

By CHRISTOPHER CICCONE
Last updated at 10:46 PM on 19th July 2008

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Madonna is on the LA set of the Material Girl video, sashaying down a staircase, decked out in a fuchsia satin replica of the gown Marilyn wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, when she comes face-to-face with hot actor Sean Penn.

He is 24, she is 26, their birthdays are just one day apart, and - for both of them - it is love at first sight.

After the video shoot, Sean goes to a friend’s house. The friend is reading from a book of quotations, turns to a page and reads out the following random quote: ‘She had the innocence of a child and the wit of a man.’

Crazy for you: Madonna with lover Warren Beatty in Dick Tracy

As Sean later remembered it: ‘I looked at my friend and he just said, “Go get her.” So I did.’

On February 13, 1985, Madonna and Sean go on their first date together. After that, there is no question that they want to be together, for now and always.

The following month, I move out to Los Angeles and stay with Madonna and Sean at his home in Malibu.

Madonna tells me she feels isolated, and I don’t blame her. From the first, I get the distinct impression that Sean is reclusive and feels happiest hiding out at home with Madonna alone.

Sean also loves his friend, the writer Charles Bukowski, who lumbers into the house, day or night, blind drunk and puking.

The moment he arrives, my sister escapes into the bedroom, disgusted. She loathes few things more than an undisciplined drunk.

Still, less than six months after they met, on June 24, Madonna and Sean announce their engagement. With his wedding to my sister on the horizon, Sean decides that now is the perfect time for us to undergo some hard-core manly bonding.

The singer with her first husband Sean Penn

We are alone in his kitchen and he pulls out a jack-knife.

‘Christopher, let’s be blood brothers.’ I’m shocked, but fight not to show it.

‘Be what?’ I ask as nonchalantly as possible. ‘Blood brothers.’ ‘Oh, sure.’

‘Show me your thumb,’ he says, his tough-guy growl even more exaggerated than usual. I hold out my right thumb. Sean grabs my wrist with one hand and slices the middle of my thumb with the other.

Blood drips out. I wince, but not much because I don’t want Sean to think I’m soft. Then he slices his own thumb. He presses his thumb against mine and - for a couple of seconds - I return the pressure.

‘Now we are blood brothers,’ he says, and slaps me on the back. Then he goes to find Charles Bukowski, who has just finished throwing up in the bathroom.

On August 16, 1985, in an open-air ceremony just up the Pacific Coast Highway at the $6.5million home of developer Kurt Unger, Madonna marries Sean.

Stunning in a $10,000 strapless gown, with a 10ft train, Madonna has, of course, opted to wear white. Lest she be lambasted for being conventional, under her wedding veil she wears a black bowler hat.

Christopher Ciccone has been his sister Madonna’s constant confidant

The ceremony takes five minutes. I am sure the words are moving but we can’t hear the vows because we are deafened by the racket of the helicopters above us. Madonna and Sean exchange gold rings.

Then, to the tune of the rousing theme of Chariots Of Fire, which I can just about hear above the din, Sean kisses her and we all applaud.

Sean makes a toast to Madonna but we can’t hear it. Fed up, Sean charges straight into the house and gets a .45 pistol.

Madonna shouts after him: ‘What’s the big deal, Sean. Leave it be!’ But Sean fires shots in the air, while Andy Warhol, disco entrepreneur Steve Rubell, Cher (in a purple spiked wig), the rest of my family and I watch, amazed.

A few months later, Sean, Madonna and I fly to Hong Kong to start preparation for the filming of Shanghai Surprise, in which Sean plays a fortune-hunter looking for a fast track out of China, and Madonna the missionary nurse he falls in love with.

Madonna is thrilled to be making her first mainstream movie. Before filming starts, Madonna is hanging on Sean’s every word of advice concerning her acting.

But as soon as it begins, she stops playing a scene from Educating Rita and decides she is Meryl Streep instead.

It comes as no surprise to me when Madonna and Sean butt heads.

At about 3am one night, I wake to the sound of furniture being thrown around in Madonna and Sean’s suite next door.

He’s screaming at her with all his might. ‘I’m the actor, you’re not. You should forget about acting. Stick to singing instead, that’s what you’re good at.’

‘And you don’t know a ****ing thing about handling the media, you paranoid control freak,’ she counters.

I hear him smash his fist against a wall. Then the sound of a table sent flying. I am about to break down the connecting door between our suites when, all of a sudden, it flies open.

Madonna runs into my suite. Her face is flushed and she is crying. Sean is in hot pursuit, snarling with rage.

Just in time, I slam the door right in Sean’s face - and lock it. We listen in silence as Sean yells and bangs. Finally, Madonna falls asleep in my arms. In the morning, she’s gone.

When I see her again on the set later that day, her make-up is immaculate, hair perfect, and she has a bright, confident smile.

In June 1987, the 19-city US leg of the Who’s That Girl? tour opens in Miami and 60,000 fans brave a tropical downpour to see Madonna. We are staying at the Turnberry Club, where Madonna, as ever, has the penthouse.

Sean, clearly on his best behaviour, fills the suite with white lilies and white orchids and spends a couple of days with her there.

Even though they are staying in the honeymoon suite, I can tell this is the swansong for their marriage, and that Madonna is making an effort only because on July 7 Sean will begin a 60-day jail term for assaulting a photographer who snapped a picture of him on the set of his latest movie in LA.

After Sean is released from jail in mid-September 1987, having served 33 days of his sentence, he and Madonna attempt to resuscitate their marriage but fail.

She files for divorce but later withdraws the petition and decides to try to save the marriage after all.

It’s 1988, and Sean is making a heavy movie, Casualties Of War. He is completely out of step with Madonna, her life, her art and her friends.

He’s also far from amused by her latest playmate, the self-avowed lesbian comedienne Sandra Bernhard. Whenever I see them together, Sandra seems enthralled by Madonna, almost worshipful.

In January 1989, I get a call from Madonna’s agent Liz Rosenberg asking me to fly to LA. I call Madonna at once.

She says she is OK but her voice is small. Without going into great detail, she tells me Sean has been violent and abusive to her again.

She asks me to find a new house for her right away. Within a few days I have found her a home in the Hollywood Hills.

A few months later, I visit Madonna there and almost pass out in shock. Her lips are enormous.

‘Did somebody sock you?’ I ask. ‘No, I just hurt my lips.’ Concerned, I ask how. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I’ve got an allergy.’

Of course, she’s lying, but I don’t suspect. I haven’t yet heard of collagen.

If I had, I would have understood her reasons for wanting to acquire sultry, sensuous lips: she is about to meet one of the most notoriously libidinous men alive, Warren Beatty. Madonna is a bigger star than Warren now, but curious about what hanging out with him will be like.

Above all, my sister being my sister, she’s acutely aware that being Warren’s girlfriend is wonderful for her mythology, her status in Hollywood - and the positive effect on the final cut he, as director, will make on her latest movie, Dick Tracy.

At the height of her romance with Warren, Madonna tells me that he wants to meet me. I’m both flattered and immensely curious. I accept Warren’s invitation to join him and some friends for dinner at his house on Mulholland Drive.

A long table for 20 people is covered with a simple tablecloth, no table decoration, and set with rather ordinary china. Dinner conversation is light; Warren drinks little.

Madonna, in a short black skirt and black top, sits next to Warren but isn’t the least bit kittenish.

‘Wa-a-ren Batey,’ she whines halfway through dinner, ‘I’m getting bored.’

Of course she is. Warren has been expounding on Gary Hart’s chance of making it to the White House. My sister always gets bored unless the conversation centres on her, her next tour or her next album.

Chocolate mousse is served. My sister wolfs it down, stands up, announces, ‘I’m done,’ and walks out of the room.

Warren, however, isn’t the least bit insulted. I can tell he’s amused by Madonna, but that their relationship is more father and daughter than highly passionate fling.

Throughout dinner, they have rarely touched. In all the times the three of us are together, I never see Warren and Madonna kiss or cuddle or even hold hands.

Still, one day when we’re having coffee, she says Warren has asked her to marry him. I put down my mug, completely surprised.

‘So do you think I should, Christopher?’

‘Well, do you love him?’ ‘I think so. What do you think?’ I tell her I like Warren and think he will make a great father, but I don’t say much else because I sense that my sister isn’t truly in love with him.

Warren is perceptive enough to sense that Madonna has other fish to fry and that, as far as she is concerned, he definitely is not the only game in town.

One night when I am staying at her Hollywood Hills home, I wake up thirsty at around 3am and go to get a glass of water.

To get to the kitchen, you have to go past the office. As I walk down the long hall to the kitchen, in the shadows I see Warren in the office. It looks to me as if he is going through my sister’s wastebasket.

I quickly walk on into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water, making sure to create a lot of noise. When I walk past the office again, Warren is gone.

What is incontrovertible is that his relationship with her starts to spiral downwards.

The last time I see my sister and Warren together is at the Washington premiere of Dick Tracy. After that, their relationship just fizzles out. They have been an item for only 15 months. No fireworks, no recriminations herald the end of their romance. Just a slow, gentle fade-out.

The search for a ’smart and sexy’ man to father my sister’s first child

As The Girlie Show Tour finishes in December 1993, I feel my life has somehow ended. In contrast, Madonna’s is moving in a new and dramatically different direction; she plans to get pregnant. She doesn’t yet have a father in mind, so she launches on what she calls The Daddy Search.

She tells me her maternal instinct is starting to kick in. I believe that she wants and needs someone of her own, something of herself to carry on when she’s gone, and I surmise that she wants to be the mother she never had, and to have her child experience the maternal love she never received herself.

She is determined to find a father for her child and her search becomes a running theme between us.

Fitting the bill: Madonna with Carlos Leon, the father of her daughter Lourdes

Going to a sperm bank is unthinkable for her as the Press would find out in two minutes flat. She decides to select a man to father her unborn child, whether she marries him or not.

We come up with the term Daddy Chair. Every now and again I ask: ‘Who’s sitting in the Daddy Chair today?’

She requires the ideal candidate to be smart and good-looking but has no strictures about race or religion.

For a while the actor John Enos, who appeared in Melrose Place, is in the running. Then she goes to a New York Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden and fixes on Dennis Rodman - the 6ft 7in player famous for his tattoos and multi-coloured dyed hair.

The next time she’s interviewed on television, she makes sure to mention how much she wants to meet Rodman. Three months pass but Rodman doesn’t contact her.

My sister isn’t a quitter, so she engineers an assignment to interview Rodman for Vibe magazine and flies to Miami to meet him.

In his autobiography, Bad As I Wanna Be, Rodman claims that the moment the interview ended and the photoshoot began, he and Madonna were ‘just all over each other’ and that they went straight to bed.

According to Rodman’s book, she tells him exactly what she wants: that he father her child.

Along the way, she tells me she’s frustrated by the fact that his schedule doesn’t coincide with her ovulation and that Rodman’s estranged girlfriend still seems a factor.

‘In any case,’ she says, ‘it’s nice to have to chase someone around for a change.’

In the end, the ‘estranged girlfriend’ turns out not to be estranged from Rodman at all. Nor does Rodman exactly fit into Madonna’s lifestyle.

Rodman’s days are numbered and my sister launches another casting call.

In autumn 1994, Madonna meets Carlos Leon, a personal trainer, in Central Park. Soon after she tells me he fits the Daddy Chair perfectly - and that he is an aspiring actor.

‘Great, another actor,’ I say. ‘Shut up, he’s sweet,’ she says.

I meet Carlos and she’s right. He is sweet. He’s also handsome and sexy.

But she’s not sure he fulfils the intelligence requirement of the Daddy Chair. I meet him and decide he is a fish out of water in Madonna’s rarefied world, but he’s far from stupid.

At the beginning of 1995, we have long conversations about her relationship with Carlos. I know she wants their relationship to last for ever. But by November, Madonna says she feels mistreated and that she won’t stand for being treated like a doormat or disrespected.

Despite the fact that she changes the locks on their New York apartment, I realise she regards Carlos as far more than a stud she has cast in the Daddy Chair - she is in love with him.

But I am not surprised when she finally splits for good from the man who had fathered her daughter Lourdes.

• Abridged from Life With My Sister Madonna, by Christopher Ciccone with Wendy Leigh, published by Simon & Schuster at £17.99. To order a copy for £15.99 with free p&p, call the Review Bookstore on 0845 155 0713.

By CHRISTOPHER CICCONE
Last updated at 8:35 AM on 14th July 2008

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Few know Madonna better than her 47-year-old brother Christopher Ciccone. They grew up together in Michigan in America and learned to dance together. 

Then Christopher followed Madonna to New York, where she began her long journey to wealth and superstardom. 

From early childhood, through the years of determined struggle to the iconic figure she has become today, Christopher has been Madonna’s constant confidant and shoulder to cry on. He has been her personal assistant and dresser, her interior decorator and artistic director of her show-stopping world tours. 

While much has been written about the most famous pop star in the world, only he knows the riveting untold story behind Madonna’s carefully constructed mythology. 

Here, in unparalleled and intimate detail, Christopher tells their compelling story.

Madonna and I are standing in the driveway of her new house in Beverly Hills. She is facing me and I am facing the front gate when Guy Ritchie turns up in Madonna’s black Mercedes and drives at me. 

When he is about a foot from from me, he veers the car away, just missing my foot. I neither flinch nor move from my position.

Christopher Ciccone has been his sister Madonna’s constant confidant

He stops the car, rolls down the window and says: ‘Are you trying to prove a point?’

I say: ‘No, but I think you must be.’

He winds up the window and drives into the garage. Madonna turns to me. ‘What just happened?’ she asks.

I say: ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and leave. No matter how much I dislike Guy, he’s her husband and I want her to be happy with him, even though their life together is sometimes difficult. 

When Madonna paid our sister Melanie’s air fare so she could stay with her and Guy at Ashcombe House, their country estate in Wiltshire, she told me the atmosphere between them was very tense.

A Kabbalah rabbi would regularly come down from London to mediate between them. This does not surprise me. I believe that Kabbalah is helping keep Guy and Madonna together.

I worry about my sister. At 39, Guy is ten years her junior and she has given him latitude to pursue his own interests. But they are very different people with different approaches to things, and I wonder whether they will be able to bridge the divide.

I send her a positive letter, in which I try to help her understand him. I tell her that he is living in an incredible world with her, has an ego of his own and an idea of what he is, and that she may have shattered the illusion. She responds immediately, telling me that she is hopeful she will find her way. I hope she will.

I first heard about Guy in late 1999, after Madonna was introduced to him over lunch at Sting and Trudie Styler’s home. 

I knew Guy was a British film director and that he was younger than her. Like her first husband Sean Penn, Guy comes from a solidly middle-class family and yet both 
are prone to present themselves as tough street kids. My sister, I believe, has always played the identical game.

After all, she is a middle-class girl who propagates the story that she landed in Times Square with just a pair of ballet shoes and $35 to her name. But that’s pure mythology and the further she progresses, the more mythological her life story becomes.

Although our father wasn’t really allowed to tell us about his job because it was top-secret, he worked in the defence industry in Detroit, designing firing systems and laser optics, first at Chrysler Defense and then at General Dynamics.

Far from being this lost and friendless little waif who didn’t even have a crust of dry bread to eat, when Madonna went to New York she had money in her pocket, plenty of contacts and a support system all in place. I often wonder whether her taste for self-invention explains her attraction to both Sean and Guy.

Many of Guy’s forebears were highly decorated army officers. He clearly has a great deal to live up to. Which is why I can understand, in a way, why he chose to use his talents in a different arena by making what some term a ‘homophobic’ movie about London gangsters - Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. 

Nevertheless, I was eager to meet this Brit who appeared to have captivated my sister so much.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie. ‘His arrival in her life,’ says her brother, ‘was the death knell for my relationship’ with her’

On Millennium Eve we are both at Donatella Versace’s party at Casa Casuarina, her Miami mansion. 

Guy is friendly to me and seems like a nice guy. He is conventionally dressed in a white shirt and dark-blue trousers and jacket, and I warm to him. He is personable and respectful and seems as if he might be fun to hang out with. Nonetheless, I tell myself that I doubt he’ll outlast Madonna’s usual two-year relationship cycle. 

We have cocktails at Donatella’s table, along with Rupert Everett and Gwyneth Paltrow, and later move  on to the VIP room of a new club. 

It’s now four in the morning. I pull Gwyneth on to the dance floor. Madonna is dancing on the table. Gwyneth joins her and they dance together. In the middle of the dance, Madonna grabs Gwyneth and kisses her full on the mouth. It’s that sort of a night.

My friend Dan has brought a 19-year-old boy to the party with him. Madonna, in a knee-length pink chiffon Versace dress, is on the dance floor, dancing with a group of people. We all look good together, and we know it.

Suddenly the boy squeezes up to Madonna. He edges between us, puts his arms around her, and they dance a slow dance close together. Within an instant, Guy strides across the dance floor. He kicks the boy in the leg to get his attention and drags him away. Then he swings his fist at him. I push Guy back and yank the boy out of the room. 

The moment passes. The dancing restarts. I’m on the dance floor with Gwyneth again. Suddenly I sense someone coming up behind me. 

Guy grabs me from behind and starts bouncing me up and down like a rag doll. 

‘Put me down!’ I demand. I extract myself from his grip, shove him up against the wall and grind my hips right into him. 

‘If you want to dance with me, this is how we dance here,’ I say grimly. He flushes and pushes me off. I walk away. I don’t give Guy another thought. Rupert, however, is watching us intently. 

Later, in his autobiography, he comments: ‘Guy and Chris were from different planets, and in a way the one’s success relied on the other not being there.’

The next day, Guy and I don’t say a word to each other at a barbecue in Madonna’s garden. I decide that he is a bit of an oaf, particularly on the dance floor, a drawback with regard to Madonna because she likes her lovers to dance well. And it has always been of paramount importance to her that the man in her life should be able to deal with the gay men in her life.

I can’t imagine that Guy will be around for long. I am wrong, of course. I have no idea that the arrival of Guy in Madonna’s life is the death knell for my relationship with her.

In August 2000, Madonna and Guy’s son Rocco is born. Madonna is now firmly settled in England and she breaks the news to me that she and Guy are getting married. 

I tell her I am glad for her. Apart from the fact that Guy must remind her of Sean Penn, she is getting older and needs a father for her children. She casts such a big shadow and most men just aren’t prepared to subjugate themselves to her. I guess that Guy isn’t either, but at least he is prepared to marry her.

A previously unpublished picture of Madonna pregnant with Lola in 1996, with Christopher in the background

In a note with my wedding invitation, she says she is inviting ‘my close friends and family members that are not insane to the wedding at Skibo Castle’ in the Scottish Highlands, adding: ‘We will be married by a vicar in the Church of England because Catholics are a pain and GR doesn’t want to convert and besides I’m a divorcee.’

I am not keen to attend the wedding because I really can’t afford it. Moreover, I no longer have any affinity for Guy. 

But Madonna owes me the final payment for the interior design work I did on one of her houses and when I call to make my apologies, her assistant tells me the debt will be paid in the form of a ticket to Scotland, with the rest of the money sent separately.

I spend a few days mulling over the situation. I feel I don’t know this person who is attempting to blackmail me into attending her wedding. So I capitulate. I’m told I will fly to London a week before the wedding, be fitted for a tuxedo and the following morning fly to Inverness, a 45-minute drive from Skibo Castle. On December 21, Rocco will be christened and the wedding will take place on December 22.

Staff for the wedding are forced to sign a four-page confidentiality agreement, none of the guests is allowed a mobile phone and we are all banned from leaving the castle during the five-day celebrations. Seventy security guards will keep the Press out and the guests in Colditz Castle, here I come.

A business-class air ticket is sent to me from Madonna’s office. When I check the price, I discover that only a few hundred dollars of my fee remain outstanding. Once in London, I follow  instructions and go to Moss Bros on Regent Street to rent my tuxedo. It’s pure polyester, and when I slide the jacket on, it burns my fingers. 

The shop assistant presents me with the rental bill. ‘Put it on Guy’s bill,’ I say, and walk out.

Enlarge 

Madonna, centre, in 1970 with, from left, sister Paula, Uncle Chris, brothers Christopher and Marty, sister Melanie, stepmother Joan and father Silvio

A car meets me at Inverness Airport. After about an hour, we arrive at Dornach, turn into a sweeping drive lined with beech trees and Skibo Castle looms in front of me cloaked in mist - big, beautiful and mysterious. 

My first sight of the main hall is straight out of Hollywood. A crackling log fire burns brightly, the walls are oak-panelled, there are stuffed animal heads, a sweeping oak staircase and the landing with a stained-glass bow-window where Madonna’s wedding ceremony will take place.

At the reception desk, I am asked to hand over my credit card for incidentals. I tell the receptionist that I didn’t bring my card with me and that all my charges will be billed to Madonna and Guy. I just can’t forget her bullying behaviour.

My room is in the attic of a turret. I go through a door into a small hallway, then into a room about 6ft by 6ft, with a claw-footed Victorian bathtub in the middle and a toilet against the wall. That leads to another door, another low-ceilinged room, and there is my bed.

Back outside, a pretty girl rides by on a horse. She introduces herself as Stella. The penny drops. Stella McCartney - Madonna’s maid of honour. As far as I know, she and Madonna have only just met, yet Madonna has chosen her - not her close friends Ingrid Casares or Gwyneth Paltrow - to be her maid of honour. Stella designs and makes a free dress - worth £15,000 - especially for Madonna.

Stella explains the drill. Every morning the men will go shooting and the women will have a themed luncheon. Shooting is out of the question for me. 

Later I dress for dinner and go into the library. Guy’s friends are in there. I don’t know any of them, but one or two look familiar so I guess I’ve seen them in a film. They are relatively friendly and they all clearly have a history with one another. We have cocktails and I try to make small-talk. 

I ask how the shooting went and they tell me that they have shot 300 birds. I ask them if they are kidding. They tell me they aren’t. ‘So are we having them for dinner?’ I ask. They all laugh and tell me that we aren’t. 

In the dining room, Madonna walks in, says ‘Welcome to Scotland’ and gives me a hug. Guy shakes my hand. The large table is set for ten. Madonna has a seating chart. Scottish food is served and I pick at it halfheartedly. Then I ask for some chicken. 

Tonight, and every night afterwards, the guests toast the bridal couple. Tonight one of Guy’s friends makes the toast, which culminates in a crack with the subtext: ‘WouldnÕt it be funny if Guy were gay?’ I don’t laugh. It wouldn’t 
be funny.

Guy’s pride in his own heterosexuality swells noticeably when he’s in the presence of a gay man like me. And in his wedding week, with these after-dinner toasts seemingly aimed at underscoring his overt masculinity, he is in his element. 

I, however, am far from amused when many of the speeches trumpeting Guy’s heterosexuality include the word ‘poofter’, a derogatory British expression for gay.

The next evening, I am seated between Sting and Trudie. At first they talk about the castle and  the weather. Then Trudie leans in to me and says: ‘Christopher, do I  have BO?’

‘Huh?’

‘Do I have BO? Do I smell?’

‘Not that I can tell,’ I say, perplexed.

Then she asks: ‘Are you into that sort of thing?’ Before I can think of an answer, she chips in: ‘Mightn’t you be?’

‘Isn’t the smoked salmon delicious?’ I say.

Madonna stands up at the top of the table and issues the instruction: ‘Christopher, tonight it’s your turn to give the toast.’

I lean down the baronial table and, with great emphasis, reply: ‘Madonna, you really don’t want  me to do that.’ It’s a statement, not a question.

‘No, Christopher, it’s your turn!’ she barks in a tone identical to the one she always used as a kid when she and my siblings all played Monopoly together. 

If she didn’t get Park Place [Mayfair in the English version] she invariably stamped her feet and said: ‘But it’s mine.’ In those days, in the face of her strong will, I always capitulated and rescinded my purchase of Park Place.

Nothing seems to have changed. I stand up. My fellow guests fall silent out of respect - the brother of the bride is about to make a speech. I raise my glass: ‘I’d like to toast this happy moment that comes only twice in a person’s lifetime.’ 

Then, without skipping a beat, I go on: ‘And if anybody wants to **** Guy, he’ll be in my room later.’

Everyone erupts in laughter. Everyone, of course, except Madonna, who keeps saying: ‘What did he mean?’ Guy, who I suspect knows exactly what I mean, says nothing and avoids looking at me. 

Soon after, Trudie tells me: ‘That was hysterical. I’ve been listening to all those homophobic jokes. I just want you to know that we were aware of how you must be feeling.’

On the day of the christening, Range Rovers pull up in front of the castle to take us to Dornoch Cathedral. A Press pack of 500 photographers and even more journalists is waiting for us outside the castle gate. We drive past them but they follow us all the way to Dornoch. 

Inside, the cathedral is lit with candles and garlanded with ivy and flowers. I sit with Gwyneth and Rupert and only see Rocco - swaddled in his white and gold £20,000 Versace christening outfit, a gift from Donatella - from a distance. 

I learn later that a journalist has been hiding in the massive pipe organ for three days. By the time someone discovers him, he has passed out cold.

After about 30 minutes the service is over. We are driven back to the house. Dinner is served, toasts are given. I experience an urge to smoke but know I can’t because Madonna has banned smoking. 

Gwyneth and I leave the table at the same time. On the way up to my room we stop at her suite, which is massive and beautiful. It occurs to me that I - who sometimes signed my letters to Madonna ‘Your humble servant’ just to annoy her - have been relegated to what must be one of the smallest rooms in the castle, perhaps even servants quarters. A joke? Or just my sister’s way of keeping me in my place?

Madonna and Guy at son Rocco’s christening at Dornoch Cathedral in 2000

The next evening, just before 6.30pm, we all gather in the candlelit Great Hall and take our seats at the foot of the staircase, the balustrades of which are garlanded in ivy and white orchids. It is beautiful. I am sitting in an aisle seat, five rows from the front. 

The strains of the hymn Highland Cathedral, played by a lone piper, fill the foyer. He is replaced by a pianist, Katia Labeque, who plays as Lola [Madonna's daughter Lourdes], in a long ivory high-necked dress, descends the staircase to the landing above us, scattering red rose petals in front of her. Lola is sweet, winsome and adorable. 

Then Madonna, beautiful in a fitted ivory silk dress, enters on our father’s arm. On the landing in front of the bow-window, she joins Guy, who is wearing a green Shetland-tweed jacket, green tie, green and diamond antique cuff-links (which, I later learn, are a gift from Madonna), white cotton shirt and a kilt that someone tells me is in the plaid of the Mackintosh clan.

Rocco, snuggling in his nanny’s arms, is dressed in a kilt made from identical fabric. Guy and Madonna exchange diamond wedding rings. 

Then, in front of a female pastor, they speak the vows they’ve written themselves. I wish I could hear them, but the ceremony is so far from where we are all sitting 
that none of us can make out a single word. Deja vu - Sean and Madonna’s wedding all over again!

After 15 minutes, the wedding party descends the staircase and we all congratulate them. We sip champagne, then Madonna and Guy go up to their rooms to change. 
At dinner, I have been allocated a seat at the back of the room, sitting with my back to the bride’s table. 

I’m not surprised because, after all, I’ve been a bad boy. The best man, nightclub owner Piers Adam, stands up to give his toast. Behind him, a screen shows images of Guy as a baby, Guy as a schoolboy, and even Guy in a dress. Piers points at it. ‘You see, Guy was a poofter early on,’ he chortles, really pleased with himself. I restrain myself from getting up and throwing a plate at him. 

I glance at my sister, hoping to see a look of outrage on her face, but there is none. I am sad that Madonna, whose early success was built on her legions of gay fans, can listen to these comments without protest. I feel even sadder that she is now married to a man who seems so insecure in his masculinity that he thrives on homophobia. 
I leave the dinner, go upstairs and fall asleep. In the morning, we all pile into the bus taking us to the airport and we fly back to London. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve served my time at Skibo and it’s over. 

I have always designed Madonna’s stage shows, but in March 2001 I make the chilling discovery that she is going on the road again but isn’t hiring me.

Perhaps this is a retaliation for my wedding toast and the disdain I have demonstrated for her new husband. But a few weeks later she writes inviting me to one of the rehearsals. In the same letter, she tells me that she, Guy and the children are now eating a macrobiotic diet - no meat, chicken, bread, sugar, dairy produce or alcohol - prepared by a French macrobiotic cook. She also invites me to come to a Kabbalah class.

Although I am slightly intrigued by Kabbalah, I decline. But I do accept the invitation to the rehearsal. The overall vibe is angry, violent and not fun to watch.

Then she hires me to do the interior design of the house she has bought from Diane Keaton in Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills. But before I start work, Madonna takes me aside and says: ‘You know, Christopher, I’ve got kids now and a husband and you are going to have to design the house for the kids and to deal with my husband as well.’

I tell her it won’t be a big deal, but I am wrong. In theory, decorating Roxbury should be easy. The only construction required is changing the bathroom upstairs so it suits Madonna, building a closet for Guy and enlarging the pool. But Guy’s closet turns out to be a massive enterprise, particularly as it involves dealing with Guy directly.
We meet at the house and he tells me what he wants: ‘Nothing mincey, mate. Nothing twee.’ I stop myself from knocking his front teeth in.

He tells me that the closet must be 6ft long and 5ft wide, with hanging space just so, drawers of only one kind, and - most important of all - a glass case for his cufflinks 
and watches. The case, he says, must be lined in red velvet and have lights so he can see his cuff-links and watches displayed there.

It has to be made out of dark wood. The grain must match and run from left to right. Through it all, he addresses me as ‘Chris’ even though he knows I prefer Christopher. He is lordly, not in the least bit friendly - as if I am just another employee and not his brother-in-law.

Madonna, too, treats me as if I am nothing other than a serf paid to decorate her home. In the past, I researched fabric and furniture for her, narrowed the choice down to three samples of fabric, or three types of chairs, and brought her the samples and photographs so she could pick which she wanted. 

Now, though, she says three samples are not enough. She instructs me to bring her at least ten samples, photographs of at least ten types of chairs, and so on. And when I do, she says, she will then confer with Guy regarding the right choice.

I sense that her obstinacy stems from a deep desire to please Guy, and that he is secretly working to edge me out of every aspect of her life. When it comes to selecting the wood for his closet, I show him 12 samples and he tells me that they all look ‘twee’, using the word over and over. I get the message: I am gay and he doesn’t want the house to reflect my sexuality, which is hardly likely.

A provocative Madonna in 1990 photographed by Christopher

Madonna and I argue over the slightest detail - a doorknob, a light switch. We’ve never argued over such details before, and I feel as if I am falling into a strange, dark hole. 

In August 2002, Madonna invites me to her birthday party at Roxbury. The invitation is from ‘Mrs Ritchie’. When she was married to Sean, she never called herself Mrs Penn. 
Now she has relinquished practically the most famous name in the universe - just to make Guy feel better about himself. 

A kind and loving gesture, perhaps, but I also feel that she is acting a part. The invitation states that the dress code is kimonos only. Anyone not wearing one will not be admitted. 

I have a red cotton kimono with white writing all over it, which I bought in Tokyo, so I wear that. At the house, all the pathways are lined with votive candles and the garden looks pretty. Gwyneth and I start chatting.

All of a sudden she screams: ‘Christopher, you’re on fire.’ I look down. Flames are curling up my kimono. I rip it off and pour water over it. Gwyneth and I step on it and stamp out the fire. I am wearing black trousers and a black shirt underneath. I stay at the party dressed like that.

Madonna walks by. I show her my burned kimono, which has a large hole in it. She shrugs. ‘Put that back on. No one is allowed to stay at the party if they aren’t wearing a kimono.’

Don’t ask me if I am OK, don’t ask me if I am burned, just stick to your rules. I ignore her and go back to dancing with Gwyneth.

The next time we meet is in London, to see her opening in the play Up For Grabs. Guy is in the audience but we don’t talk. 

The next day, Madonna invites me to lunch at her house in Marylebone. The Georgian terrace home has a dramatic staircase, five reception rooms, a large library, eight bedrooms and a huge drawing room.

We go out for a walk. Suddenly she says: ‘Guy told me about this pub - let’s take a look.’ 

‘But you don’t drink beer, Madonna.’

‘I do now.’

We go into the pub and she orders a pint of bitter. I watch her face as she drinks it. She pretends to like it but I can tell she doesn’t. 

‘My husband is a beer drinker and I want to experience what he experiences,’ she says in explanation. I realise that it isn’t just Kabbalah that has saved their marriage. Madonna is striving hard to please him.

In the spring of 2003, Madonna tells me she is selling Roxbury and has bought a new house on Sunset Boulevard. At her suggestion, I go to see the house, a bizarre reproduction of a French chateau with a swimming pool, a tennis court and an indoor theatre.

I hate it on sight, but when she asks me to design and decorate it in three months flat, I agree. If I hadn’t needed the cash so badly, I would have turned her down because the time is so short. 

We exchange ideas by email and Madonna senses my feelings. An argument blows up between us, which rages in our emails. 

The conflict escalates when she sends me a vitriolic fax on September 23: ‘You hate the fact that you have to work for me. There is no sense of urgency or gratitude and I’m fed- up with all of it. This is not a healthy relationship and when you have gotten rid of your issues with me over the fact that I am what or who I am then perhaps we can work together again.’

The message is clear: for my sister, our working relationship is over. 

I write straight back to her. ‘Fine . . . fire me . . . I will consider this my last day of work for you. Believe me, I have always worked for every penny you have paid me, and generally it was pennies. You need to take another look at Kabbalah and its teachings and start practising it yourself instead of using it as a weapon on others.’

The following morning, she fires off another fax to me in which she ends our working relationship. She admits: ‘Perhaps I expect too much because of history, water under the bridge and the fact that you are my brother. Who knows, but it’s not good chemistry.’

Madonna going to her first communion in 1967 with her siblings Marty, Melanie and Christopher in front

I suspect that Guy is somewhere in the background, pulling my sister’s strings. Either way, she has made my life a misery during the entire job. Finally, the house is completed according to schedule. But I don’t receive the final payment of £7,500, so I call her assistant, Caresse.

‘Madonna wants me to tell you that she doesn’t feel you did enough to warrant the final payment. So she isn’t going to pay it,’ she says. For a moment, I digest the latest blow my sister has dished out.

‘You tell Madonna that if she wants to see any of the rest of the furniture I bought for her and for which she’s waiting, she had better pay me.’ Caresse gulps and hangs up. Within a few hours my final cheque arrives by messenger and I arrange for Madonna to get the rest of her furniture.

By now, Madonna and I are hardly on speaking terms. But we are not completely estranged. Then, at the end of October 2003, she decides to return one of the light fixtures I’ve purchased for her. Caresse takes it back to the shop and learns that I have charged a percentage above the cost - the standard mark-up every designer takes.

On October 24, Madonna calls me and says that she can’t believe I’ve done this to her, calling me a thief, a liar, the most untrustworthy person she’s ever met and accusing me of betraying her. The accusation that hurts the most is when she yells: ‘I’ve made you what you are. You wouldn’t be anything without me.’

I do my best to defend myself. She hits back with a fax in which she hurls further accusations at me, ending: ‘Please never contact me again.’

It is as if my sister has taken a knife, stuck it into my stomach and twisted it 25 times. Or ripped my heart out and carved it into a thousand pieces. I’ve spent the past 20 years helping make her a star, supporting her and protecting her without much financial reward. And now this.

I read her poisonous words over and over, enraged. In frustration, I smash my fist on my desk. I break a bone in my hand and, for weeks after, have to wear a cast, but the physical pain is negligible next to the psychological pain my sister has just inflicted on me.

On the set of Shanghai Surprise in 1986

Every bit of anger I’ve ever felt at her, every disappointment she’s  caused me, every iota of pride I’ve swallowed on her behalf, every bitter rejection – it all comes to the surface. I reply to her. ‘You have never in the entire time I have worked for you since 1985 paid me even close to what I was worth. I gave up my life to help make you the evil queen you are today. Fifteen years listening to your bitching, egotistical rantings, mediocre talent and a lack of taste that would stun the ages. 

‘Every ounce of talent you have, you have sucked dry from me and the people around you. I certainly never worked for you for the money, now you accuse me of lying and cheating you. You’ve got some nerve. 

‘You have lost all sense of reality. I always thought that one day you’d see my worth and behave accordingly, but you never did. A little respect was all I ever wanted from you, and you couldn’t even manage that.’

I end with: ‘Don’t forget to remove me from your will.’ Then I press Send.

As I do, the weight falls off my shoulders. All of a sudden, I am free of Madonna. I don’t have to protect her any more. I don’t have to worry about how my public behaviour will reflect on her. I can be myself at last. Christopher, not Madonna’s brother.

Then I am overcome by a deep sadness. The woman I loved above all others, the woman I thought was incredibly creative and loving has surrounded herself with sycophants who do nothing but agree with her and who, I feel, have poisoned her against me. 

The Madonna I once knew is lost to me for ever. I am sorry for her, and us.

Abridged from Life With My Sister Madonna, by Christopher Ciccone with Wendy Leigh, published by Simon & Schuster on July 15 at £17.99. To order a copy for £15.99 with free p&p call 0845 606 4213.

$64,000 … the debt she left me to pay

I am flicking through a Sotheby’s catalogue and notice three 19th Century landscapes – nothing major, just decorative items costing a total of $64,000, but perfect for Madonna’s Coconut Grove house in Miami. 

I send the catalogues to Madonna’s apartment, with the paintings highlighted. Madonna says she wants the landscapes. Normally, for ‘small’ purchases, I lay out the money myself and Madonna pays me back.

So I go over to Sotheby’s and, with the bulk of my savings, win the auction and pay for them. Invoice in hand, I take the paintings to Madonna’s apartment and present them to her. 

‘I don’t want them,’ she says. 

I assume she must be joking. ‘You’re kidding me, Madonna.’

‘I don’t want them any more and I’m not paying for them.’ 

As she is well aware, Sotheby’s policy is that if paintings bought in auction are returned, they will re-auction them but will retain half the proceeds. But, for her own reasons, Madonna is pretending that she doesn’t know that.

I feel as if I am going to throw up. ‘But, Madonna, I’ve spent my own money on them. I don’t make the kind of money you make. I can’t just drop $64,000. That’s all the money I have.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘But you can’t not care.’

‘Sell them to somebody else. If they are worth that much money, sell them to somebody. I don’t care what you do. I don’t want the paintings.’

She gets up and sweeps out of the room, leaving me standing there, clutching an invoice for $64,000 and three paintings, and feeling as though she has punched me in the stomach. 

I reason that in her head, she must be telling herself that because I am her brother, I should cope with whatever hand she deals me. Still, I never dreamed that she would ever treat me with such a lack of caring or lack of respect. 

Today, I suppose, is a milestone. My first experience of the full force of my sister’s dark side, her lack of concern for someone she purports to love. Our father instilled the values of loyalty and honour in us. But over the years, my sister’s sense of loyalty and fairness has clearly been eroded by the adulation, the applause and the sense of entitlement.

It takes me six months to resell the three landscapes. Six months during which I can’t pay my rent, have to borrow from friends, have to struggle to survive. My sister, the cause of my predicament, knows this, yet does nothing. 

By the time I finally recoup my money, my feelings for her have undergone a radical shift.

By ADAM NICHOLS

OM MY GOD! Practicing yoga nude, like this sexy flexy feels totally natural for the city’s attire-optional crowd - as does lounging around naked in restaurants for private meals and even at no-clothes comedy clubs.

first off , we are a FEDERAL government , not a national government, that means we have sovereign states. Yet Obama has just stated he wants to disband the active, professional military. He has stated in the past , that he thinks we are terrorists…
posted by phil

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Last updated: 9:17 am
July 21, 2008 
Posted: 4:42 am
July 21, 2008

Welcome to Nude York City.

Some folks are stripping down to escape the scorching summer temperatures - but others aren’t waiting ’til they hit the area’s clothing-optional beaches.

The au naturel look is catching on at city restaurants, a Midtown yoga club and even a stand-up comedy joint.

“We’re just more comfortable nude,” said John Ordover, who rents city eateries for dinner parties with a strict dress code - no clothes allowed.

Vote: Would you do Yoga in the buff?

“We’re not out to shock or put on a public spectacle. We want only to do things that other people do in the way that we are most comfortable doing them. That, for us, is without clothes,” he said.

About 50 diners - whose motto is “no hot soup” - regularly turn up for Ordover’s monthly meals held at venues including the Mercantile Grill on Pearl Street and Pete’s Downtown in Brooklyn.

They’re served by regular restaurant staff - forced by city laws to keep their clothes on.

“We’ve never had a restaurant say no to us, and the waiters think nothing of it,” said Ordover, 46, who works as a Web marketer when he has his clothes on.

“If you work in a restaurant in New York City, the chances are you’ve seen a lot more shocking things than a room full of naked diners,” he added.

At a Midtown studio called the Phoenix Temple, twice-weekly yoga classes also are really encouraging participants to expose their inner selves.

“I had such a transformative experience on my own when I did yoga naked rather than clothed,” said Naked Yoga NYC teacher Isis Phoenix. “I wanted to share that.”

The classes have about 10 devotees who have to obey two rules - leave your clothes behind, and bring your own mat.

“We are reclaiming and celebrating our bodies,” said Phoenix, who starts each class with a disrobing ceremony.

“The first 10 minutes of class for anyone who is new, there’s always a sense of trepidation,” said Phoenix. “It dissolves very quickly.”

And at a Gotham comedy club, the sniggering isn’t caused just by the punch lines.

“The first time I tried comedy naked, it was the best thing ever,” said Andy Ofiesh, founder of the Naked Comedy Showcase, whose stable of stark-naked funnymen and women perform once a month at the People’s Improv Theater in Chelsea.

“It gives you a kind of vulnerability that puts the audience on your side straight away.”

That audience could also be in the same vulnerable state. Half the auditorium is reserved for people who enjoy laughing in the nude.

“We fill the space,” said Ofiesh. “Finding comedians is more difficult.

Monday, Jul. 14, 2008 By ALEX ALTMAN

Madonna book brother

Madonna arrives at a film premiere at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.

Gareth Cattermole / Getty

The release of Life with My Sister Madonna — the breathless tell-all from the Material Girl’s brother, Christopher Ciccone, with writer Wendy Leigh — couldn’t have been more fortuitously timed. As the book hits stores, the world’s most famous Kabbalah practitioner is fending off rumors of a pending split from husband Guy Ritchie and of an alleged affair with New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, whom she reputedly “brainwashed,” causing the dissolution of his marriage. So bright is Madonna’s star that this jumble of reheated anecdotes warranted an initial print run of 350,000 copies.

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The New Science of Siblings

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What those readers will get is a narrative that reveals less about Madonna than about the brother condemned to living in her considerable shadow. Ciccone, an artist and interior decorator, served stints as Madonna’s backup dancer, her “dresser” (a role in which his tasks included wiping sweat from her sometimes-naked body) and later as her designer. But mostly, by his telling, he functioned as her doormat. And, occasionally, her garbage can (one of his chores was allowing his sister to spit cough drops into his palm). “I find no excuse for Madonna’s grossly unfair treatment of me,” he acknowledges. She jilts him repeatedly — summoning him to New York and then relinquishing her offer of a place to stay, or forcing him to eat half the cost of a set of paintings he purchased at her behest. Yet Ciccone is unable — or unwilling — to resist her magnetism. They are no longer close — but that may be as much her choice as his.

Madonna is 27 months older than Ciccone, and she snatched his innocence around the same time she was surrendering her own. She gives him his first joint, his first ecstasy pill, his first visit to a gay club. These events foreshadowed a peculiar sort of sibling bond. Consider: Both lost their virginity in the backseats of cars to guys named Russell. True to form, he notes, she “bests” him even here: her dalliance took place in a Cadillac, his in a Datsun. It was clear during her childhood in Michigan, Ciccone says, that Madonna wasn’t shy about deploying her sexuality to get what she wanted — Bette Midler once called her “the woman who pulled herself up by her bra straps.” But while his sister wielded sex as a weapon, especially after dropping out of college to pursue stardom in New York, Ciccone’s sexuality often posed him problems. After he came out to his father, a conservative Catholic, the elder Ciccone sent Christopher a letter offering to pay for a psychiatrist to “help you with this problem.”

Of course, it’s Madonna’s love life that readers want the scoop on, and Ciccone is happy to pry open her bedroom door. He dishes on becoming Sean Penn’s blood brother and Warren Beatty’s habit of quizzing him about what it’s like to be gay. Madonna bedded so many luminaries, it seems, that some notable members of this diverse group — John F. Kennedy Jr., graffiti pioneer Jean-Michel Basquiat, basketball star Dennis Rodman and steroid-user-turned whistleblower Jose Canseco — rate no better than a passing mention. Ciccone paints Ritchie in a particularly unflattering light, claiming the director’s homophobia drove a wedge between the siblings.

Lurid details aside, the book offers a peek at a man still grappling with his sister’s dizzying fame. Ciccone calls the book a “catharsis,” and given the hurt splashed across its pages, that’s easy to believe. But it’s hard to muster a ton of sympathy for a guy profiting handsomely from a hatchet job on his own sister — regardless of how miserably she may have treated him. 

The art satirizes right-wing portrayals of the candidate, magazine says.