Before she sang ‘Miles Away’, which Madonna previously claimed was inspired by Ritchie, she told the audience: ‘This song is for the emotionally retarded. Maybe you know some people who fall into that category. I know I do.’

The swipe was her only acknowledgment during the show of the split, which was confirmed earlier that day by her spokesperson.

The gig at the city’s Banknorth Garden was the 23rd concert of the Sticky & Sweet World Tour, which started in Cardiff in August and is expected to end in December.

Madonna cryptically announced to a New York concert audience on October 6: ‘In exactly 29 moves, the Queen will dump the King.’ She then had 29 more dates on her U.S. tour.

But in the light of yesterday’s announcement, it seems she simply could not wait that long.

The couple are now lining up for what could become the costliest divorce in British legal history.

After weeks of frenzied speculation, Madonna’s U.S. spokesman Liz Rosenberg yesterday released a statement: ‘Madonna and Guy Ritchie have agreed to divorce after seven and a half years of marriage.

‘They have both requested that the media maintain respect for their family at this difficult time. A final settlement has not been agreed upon yet.’

Madonna had been sending Guy messages their marriage was over months ago when she began moving some of their art collection, including a Dali and portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David from their London home to their New York residence.

(source)

Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow spent the past few months desperately trying to convince her best friend Madonna not to separate from Guy Ritchie, MailOnline can reveal.

The 36-year-old believes Madonna and Guy, who announced the end of their nearly eight-year marriage today, should remain together for the sake of their three children.

Gwyneth is said to have advised her friend to think long and hard about the effects a divorce from the film director will have on Rocco, eight, adopted David Banda, two, and Lourdes, Madonna’s 12-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

A source told MailOnline: ‘Gwyneth begged Madonna all summer not to be an idiot and let this marriage fall apart.’

Like Madonna, the Shakespeare In Love star is an American married to an Englishman, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and alternates her time between her homes in London and New York.

Gwyneth is also said to have developed a soft spot for toddler David and would be devastated to lose regular contact with him as well as with her best friend.

The source said: ‘Gwyneth is in love with that little boy and sees him several times a week while she’s in London, and she has as much at stake as anyone in seeing his parents stay together.

‘She just doesn’t think it’s possible that Madonna and Guy would hurt their children by splitting up, and says she has actively advised both of them to put their problems and their egos aside for the sake of the children.

‘But Madonna can be very hard-headed and treats Gwyneth like a younger sister. If Madonna goes through with a divorce it’s going to break Gwyneth’s heart and affect their friendship permanently.’

Adding to Gwyneth’s determination to keep her friends together is her belief that Guy is an excellent parent to the couple’s children.

The source said: ‘Gwyneth considers Madonna to be a very progressive parent, especially when it comes to keeping Lourdes tuned into her roots and encouraging her relationship with Carlos Leon.

‘That Guy has gone along with that is very impressive to Gwyneth, and just one other reason she the thinks they’re not going to divorce over any issue with the children, no matter how rough things get.’

The domesticated actress is also concerned she’ll lose contact with the fiercely independent Madonna once she’s single again.

‘Gwyneth loves being a mom and loves having Madonna as a confidant about marriage, motherhood and keeping a home together in the public eye,’ the source continued.

‘For those reasons alone, Madonna becoming single again is Gwyneth’s worst nightmare. Overnight, they’d go from having everything in common to almost nothing.

‘I don’t think their friendship could survive, especially if Madonna is the one who forces the split.’

However, despite the major upheavals in Madonna’s personal life, it’s unlikely the pop superstar will abandon London for good.

The source said: ‘No matter what happens, with Gwyneth’s help, Madonna has made a home in England, and she’s staying. She loves it there, and has more friends than reports have lead on. England is in her blood, and she won’t walk away from it even if her marriage goes south.

‘For Gwyneth’s part, if they break up, she’ll have to stay friends with Madonna and Guy because she loves those kids so much and Chris and Guy have a very solid friendship as well.’

(source)

THIS is the orphan whom Malawian officials say pop goddess MADONNA is “on the very cusp” of adopting.

Madge originally scrapped her year-long battle for three-year-old Mercy James just four months ago as her marriage to British film director GUY RITCHIE, 39, hit the rocks.

But officials yesterday confirmed the star has resumed her adoption bid — which pals say proves their marriage is “back on track”.

Malawian adoption minister Penstone Kilembe said: “Madonna’s representatives have been visiting the girl. The adoption is now advanced — all the government is waiting for is Madonna to forward the petition of adoption formalities.

“Then Mercy will be able to leave the country for a new life.”

Pals of Madonna, who turns 50 on Saturday, say she is keen to have a sister for her adopted Malawian son David Banda, three — and feels her marriage is again strong enough to cope.

A close family friend revealed: “The adoption process in Malawi is so long and stressful that all the legal wrangling put a huge strain on their marriage.

“They dropped proceedings to pour all their energies into each other. But Madonna now feels they are stable enough to press ahead with the adoption again.”

The friend said Madge “fell in love” with Mercy when they met at her orphanage last year.

However, the girl’s gran Lucy Chekechiwa, 60, said she has been asked repeatedly by officials if Mercy could be adopted by an “unidentified foreign family” — but was firmly against it.

Speaking from her village in Zomba District, Lucy said: “We know that it is Mercy who Madonna really wants. We heard it is because my granddaughter is such a beautiful, happy child.

“Twice I have told the adoption people that I do not want Mercy to go outside the country.

“But they keep on at us. Now they say that Mercy will be leaving us, but can return at age 18. Yet I might not be alive then.”

The Sun revealed how Madge, who also has daughter Lourdes, 11, and son Rocco, eight, was given permission to adopt Mercy last August — but had to stop when the girl’s uncle John Nglanade, 36, blocked the application.

(source)

Despite denials from Madonna’s publicist, a source close to the singer’s plastic surgeon says that the Material Girl has indeed had plastic surgery, as recently as this spring.

The procedure? “A mid-face lift,” says the source. “It’s meant to make the cheekbones more prominent.”

That isn’t entirely what’s to blame for Madonna’s increasingly haggard look, however. The source confirms that Madonna has lost a bit of weight, thanks in part to the stress induced by constant media coverage of the singer’s supposed relationship with Yankee Alex Rodriguez.

A Madonna pal says friends are worried that her upcoming tour will take an additional toll, and would like to see her gain some weight.

But if Madonna insists on the medical route to youth (not a stretch, since she’s been known to carry vitamin B-12 shots on her person) Dr. Tahl Humes (who does not treat Madonna) of Vitahl Medical Rejuvenation Spa in Denver says she “would recommend using dermal fillers to restore her look.”

(source)

The Yankee slugger is making a big donation to the icon’s charity, Raising Malawi, a source tells us.

“They’ve asked him for a million dollars, and I hear he’s agreed to give at least $500,000,” the source confided.

A-Rod, who denied an affair with Madonna — despite being spotted with the pop superstar around town — may have some hefty alimony and child-support payments ahead after his divorce from Cynthia Rodriguez is finalized. But he has shown great generosity in the past.

He gave $3.9 million to the University of Miami to help build a baseball stadium, and he didn’t even want his name on it. And he can certainly afford to share the wealth. The 10-year contract he signed in December grants him $275 million, with $30 mil more should he break the all-time home run record — a distinct possibility.

A-Rod’s reps wouldn’t return calls, and Raising Malawi director Philippe van den Bossche told us, “Obviously when you’re talking about donors, these are private things. I would never reveal information about any donor.”

The charity’s effort to help the African nation’s 1 million orphans and others with food, medicine and education is a desperately important one, he says.

“We’re building a girls’ school, which will bring the best resources from around the world with a specific focus on medicine, education and the law. And we don’t want a brain drain. We want to develop the leaders of Malawi, who stay in Malawi and help their country.”
Madonna is reportedly preparing to adopt a Malawian girl, having completed her adoption of Malawi-born David Banda.
Van den Bossche denied the charity, whose co-founder is Kabbalah Center head Michael Berg, would start a school with a Kabbalah-based curriculum.

He said, “It will be based on the British system” — as is taught in private schools Madonna’s children Lourdes and Rocco attend.
And every step is a partnership, like with New York starchitect Markus Dochantschi working pro bono with a Malawian architect to design the school.

“We want programs that can be copied in developing countries throughout the world,” van den Bossche told us. “Not just a celebrity one-off.”

(source)

She might be known worldwide as the Material Girl, but there’s more than a little of the small-town Michigan girl left in Madonna.

The pop superstar arrived in this northern Michigan resort town Saturday to introduce her documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” a highlight of the Traverse City Film Festival. The event was co-founded by filmmaker, author and fellow Michigan native Michael Moore.

Hundreds of fans cheered from behind barricades as Madonna, wearing a black dress, high heels and sunglasses, stepped out of a black sport utility vehicle that pulled up in front of the State Theatre. She hugged a waiting Moore, who sported an orange baseball cap, and posed for photos with him.

Madonna and Moore shared the stage at the theater before a screening of the movie, which deals with the orphans of Malawi, the African nation where she and husband Guy Ritchie adopted a son.

“It’s great bringing my movie to a place that I feel familiar,” Madonna told the audience. “Not like the Cannes Film Festival, where nobody’s speaking English, or the Tribeca Film Festival, where no one sits down.

“There’s something poetic about coming back to the place where I used to come for holidays – camping trips with my dad and stepmother and my very large family,” said the 49-year-old singer, born to the southeast in Bay City and raised in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills.

Madonna was accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, Lourdes, and the film’s director, Nathan Rissman. Ritchie was not present.

Moore, who won an Oscar for his 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” said he was humbled to be able to call Madonna a friend.

“She has such an incredible heart and such a generous spirit,” he said. “She does so much out of the glare of the lights to make the world a better place.”

Madonna had praise of her own for Moore, 54, a Flint-area native who has a home near Traverse City.

“There aren’t a lot of role models for us in the world, or people we can look up to,” she said. “People who are not afraid to stick their neck out, people who are not afraid to stand up for things and be unpopular, to go against the grain, think outside the box.

“And we need, and I need, Michael Moore in my life.”

Madonna appeared amid the release of a tell-all book by her brother and speculation about her relationship with New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. Madonna and Rodriguez both deny an affair. She did not address the dust-ups in her appearance Saturday.

Madonna and Alex Rodriguez might be distancing themselves from each other, but their common interest in Kabbalah is only growing stronger.

According to a source close to the religion, A-Rod has been assigned to Madonna’s spiritual advisor, Rabbi Eitan Yardeni, for all of his Kabbalah and spiritual needs. This speaks volumes about A-Rod’s importance to the organization, says the source.

“A-Rod is clearly bringing in enough publicity for them if he’ll actually study with Yardeni. (Yardeni) is Madonna’s direct contact. This is a very big deal,” says the source.

Yardeni did not respond to requests for comment.

What exactly will Yardeni do to help A-Rod? Says the source, “When there’s trouble with Madonna, when she needs help with a decision, (Yardeni) is dispatched. He calls the shots in her spiritual life. When she’s on tour and needs spiritual guidance, he flies to wherever he is. The same will go for A-Rod.”

So Yardeni will essentially hit the road with the Yankees? According to the source, it’s looking that way: “Basically, yes. I don’t know if he’ll be allowed in the locker room though.”

(source)

MADONNA’s estranged brother CHRISTOPHER CICCONE released his tell-all book about life with the superstar because he wanted to “watch her squirm”.

Ciccone published the controversial tome, Life With My Sister Madonna, earlier this month and he recently admitted that his revelations in the book left his famous older sister “very upset”.

But the 47-year-old insists the book was a watered down version of what he wanted to publish – because his lawyers forced him to omit much of the more controversial content.

He tells MSNBC.com, “There are plenty of things I left out of the book. And things that the lawyers and editors took out.”

But Ciccone still enjoyed Madonna’s reaction to the controversy.

He adds, “I will admit to a guilty pleasure in watching her squirm. (Releasing the book was like a) giant f**king orgasm. Therapy I already had; this was pure sex.”

(WENN)

A sleazy cameraman is trying to flog a tape he alleges shows the singer romping with US baseball hunk Alex Rodriguez.

He is demanding a fortune for the footage he claims was shot with a hidden camera in an apartment allegedly used by the pair for secret afternoon trysts.

Last night Madonna’s lawyers said they were “aware” of the lensman’s claims but were not commenting.

Legal experts said there was no firm evidence the video existed.

But the cameraman’s claims could not have come at a worse time for pop queen Madonna, 49.

She has been plagued by rumours that she is having an affair with Rodriguez, nicknamed A-Rod, and that her marriage to British movie director Guy Ritchie is on the rocks.

The singer, who has publicly denied any rift, has agreed to support her husband at the London premiere of his film Rock Rolla. And she plans to be with Guy for his 40th birthday on September 10.

But pals claim the shows of togetherness are little more than a publicity stunt and allege the couple have already divided up some of their assets.

The cameraman’s claims of a tape are set to heap more pressure on the pair.

In a series of emails fired off to media outlets, he alleged the footage was shot two months ago in an apartment owned by a pal of Madonna she knows through her devotion to the Kabbalah religion.

The video man – who is also a friend of the apartment owner – claimed he found out and secretly installed a hidden camera in the living room with the lens pointed at the sofa.

He alleged the footage he recorded showed the pop superstar romping with New York Yankees ace A-Rod.

But legal experts say if his claims are true the lensman could face prosecution for voyeurism and burglary. One said: “If footage was obtained in this way it would be an outrageous invasion of privacy.

“But more than that he would not have had his friend’s consent to install the camera and must have entered the apartment without approval to hide it. That is burglary.

“He would be prima facie guilty of voyeurism. Instead of making a million he’d be going to jail for a few years.

“Even if the video existed it would probably be seized by the courts.’’

Madonna and husband Guy were spotted together in New York last week.

She starts her Sticky And Sweet tour in Cardiff on August 23 and has rearranged her schedule to attend Guy’s premiere and his Irish-themed birthday bash.

She insists that she is just a friend of A-Rod, who is 33 next week, and has been helping him look for an apartment in New York.

(source)

MADONNA is “loving” the attention she’s getting from the Alex Rodriguez scandal, friends said – and as of Sunday, she was planning on ramping up the rumors by cheering on her close friend during today’s All-Star game at Yankee Stadium.

“She, [manager] Guy Oseary and some friends have tickets and are planning on going,” said a spy. “She doesn’t care about the press it will get – she loves it. It just gets her more publicity for her upcoming Sticky and Sweet tour.”

Madonna and hubby Guy Ritchie have been acting like a very strong couple ever since news broke that not only was A-Rod’s wife, Cynthia, divorcing him, but that she claims he’d had an “affair of the heart” with the singer. Madonna, who has been actively trying to get A-Rod into kabbalah, denies any affairs with the slugger.

“Cynthia’s claims don’t bother Guy,” said a pal of the couple. “He and Madonna have an unconventional marriage and are fine with it. He is obsessed with his work and so is she. They are not planning on divorcing.”

Ritchie just signed Robert Downey Jr. to his next movie about Sherlock Holmes, and is said to be in LA now with the actor.

But while Madonna can blow off the bad C-Rod press, she is not pleased with the press that her brother, Christopher Ciccone, and his book, “Life With My Sister Madonna,” are generating.

Madge is said to be furious with Ciccone, who describes his sister as a petty, mean pennypincher who stiffed him out of tens of thousands of dollars.

A source told Jossip that although Ciccone was on “Good Morning America,” his interviews with “The Insider” and “Entertainment Tonight” were canceled after Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg, made calls implying that if Ciccone appeared on the shows, they’d lose access to Madonna. A rep for the shows said, “That’s not us.”

(source)