all about Madonna

Back for her eleventh album, Madonna told Ryan about her upcoming european tour, her fitness secrets and motherhood.
Click here to listen or download.

If there’s anyone in the celeb-uverse who’s well equipped to discuss the ongoing controversy over Miley Cyrus’ Internet and Vanity Fair photos, it’s Madonna.

After all, over the course of her 25 years in the spotlight, she’s seemingly delighted in rankling the general public with her music, her videos and, of course, her coffee table book. You could probably argue that Maddy – who, just in case you’ve been living under a rock, released her 11th studio album, Hard Candy earlier this week – is the greatest pop culture icon of our generation, flitting between personas, tackling taboos and basically playing the media like a maestro. Simply put, she knows the ins and outs of the game, because she pretty much invented it.

So when MTV News caught up with her backstage at New York’s Roseland Ballroom Wednesday night, where she and special guest Justin Timberlake had just delighted a standing-room-only crowd of superfans with a taught, hit-packed set, we decided to get her two cents on “Mileygate.”

“I just want to go on record and say everyone should just leave her alone. I never represented anything wholesome in America … I only had one way to go,” she laughed. “People are just bored. Leave the poor girl alone! She’s going to grow up soon, she’s going to probably show her knees next – watch out!”

(Plenty of others have weighed in on the Cyrus photos, including Hilary Duff, Nick Cannon, actors from “The Hills,” the Jonas Brothers, media types speculating on their effect on Cyrus’ career and lots of fans and parents.)

And Madonna can view the controversy from both sides of the spectrum. Not only has she been through what Cyrus is going through, she’s also the mother of 11-year-old Lourdes, who — like seemingly every other 11-year-old girl on the planet — is a huge Hannah Montana fan. So while the entertainer clearly doesn’t have a problem with Cyrus’s Vanity Fair photos, does the mother?

“[Lourdes] is a fan, and I don’t think she really cares [about the photo,]” Madonna said. “It’s not a big deal. What is a big deal? Let’s talk about something that’s a big deal.”

Hey, a Material Girl can dream, can’t she?

source : mtv

Madonna gets her own hour on WHTZ (100.3 FM) Thursday.

Out of the studio to promote her “Hard Candy” CD, she’s getting 6-7 p.m. all to herself.

The station will start with some old and new Madonna music, then morning host Elvis Duran and morning team member Carolina Bermudez will talk to her live at the end of the hour.

source : nydailynews

Part 1 (Madonna talks about the making of Hard Candy)
Part 2 (Madonna talks about working with Pharell and Justin Timberlake)
Part 3 (Madonna talks about some of the tracks on Hard Candy)

Thanks to David

There’s no big mystery why Madonna hooked up with such R&B-hip-hop stars as Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, producer Timbaland and his protege Nate “Danja” Hills for her new dance-pop album, Hard Candy, in stores Tuesday.

“Because I love their music and when I like something I go after it,” said the 49-year-old Material Girl during a recent roundtable interview with reporters from around the world including Sun Media in a Canadian print exclusive.

“That’s it — not too intellectual,” she said before elaborating. “I was just thinking about what I wanted to do next. I’d made a dance record — my last album (2005’s Confessions On A Dance Floor) — which was mostly house music, and I was sitting around talking to (previous songwriting-producing collaborator) Stuart Price one day and he said, ‘Well what do you want to do next?’ I said, ‘I want to make dance music as always.’

And he said, ‘Well, what kind of music do you like right now?’ And I said, ‘Well, the only records I love are Justin’s and Timbaland’s.’ And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you work with them?’ So I did. It’s a great sound, so why not?”

So if you think the famously chameleon-like Madge, now on her second marriage to British filmmaker Guy Ritchie and a mother of three (11-year-old daughter Lourdes, 7-year-old son Rocco and 2-year-old son David), has settled down since her early days of wanting to shock the public into thinking by pushing sexual, religious and social boundaries, think again.

On the album cover of Hard Candy, she takes on the persona of a female fighter.

“I’m still trying to make those hits,” she said of her career, 25 years and sales of 200 million later.

“Everybody wants to make music that people want to listen to; that people want to hear on the radio. I’ve never, ever made a record where I didn’t care whether people heard it or not…

“I think I probably wrote about simple, straightforward, let’s-just-have-a-good-time kind of songs when I first started out. And then as I evolved and changed as a human being, my music has been a reflection of that.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t still write a song about just getting up and dancing and feeling good. But I think that my songs have more of a sense of irony in them or contradiction in them than they used to. And I’d like to think that they’re more complex.”

In the latest ELLE magazine, on which she graces the cover, The Queen of Pop describes Timberlake — who inducted her into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame last month — as “a gentleman,” — and Williams as “a smooth operator.”

Timbaland? “A Cheshire Cat.”

Madonna said her work ethic is still going strong and one of her younger collaborators was taken aback by it.

“I think it was a little bit of a surprise, not necessarily to Justin, but to Pharrell,” she said.

“He just kept referring to me as a workhorse and he complained a little bit about my relentless inability to sit still for very long. But he got over it quickly.

“I have a great sense of curiosity about the world and I’m always trying to learn new things and put myself in the position where I’m working with people who know more than I do. So if I constantly put myself in a position where I’m learning something then I have something new to express.”

Madonna, who claims turning 50 in August is just another reason to have a party, said writing with the two twentysomething men — seven tunes with Williams and five with Timberlake, including the first single, Four Minutes — basically came down to a lot of brainstorming.

“Everything that I wrote with either Justin or Pharrell was always us sitting around playing with ideas, concepts and phrases,” she said.

“So a lot of times, one person would introduce the concept or a title and the other person would fill in the blanks and then vice-versa. I collaborate with people in lots of different ways. I either can come up with an entire idea with all the lyrics written or, often times, I hear music and just eight bars of music will inspire a lyric.

“Like when I heard the music from (another new song) Miles Away, I immediately started singing and the words came and I don’t know where they came from, but I don’t really question the creative process. It just happens the way it happens.”

Despite recently having to fend off rumours of problems in her marriage to Ritchie, new songs such as Miles Away and Incredible are clearly relationship-in-trouble songs.

“I guess we’re at our best when we’re, Miles away,” goes the lyrics in the melancholy Miles Away.

“Let’s finish what we started,” Madonna sings in Incredible.

Madonna said it’s not difficult to express herself lyrically without giving away too much of her own privacy.

“I don’t think it’s hard,” she said. “I think most people whether they write fiction, non-fiction, pop songs, screenplays or whatever, even if they’re writing about somebody else completely, there’s always going to be an element of that person in that story.

“And most of the things that I’ve done end up being somewhat autobiographical, a tiny bit autobiographical, or completely biographical. It’s very hard for me to discern that when I’m writing.

“But I think that there’s a clever way to tell a story and put your heart into it and your experiences without being obvious about the experiences. There’s definitely a big part of me in the record.”

There is also a sense of urgency on Hard Candy, particularly on the first single with the refrain: “We’ve got four minutes to save the world.”

She insisted that has nothing to do with getting older.

“I don’t think my age has anything to do with my sense of urgency,” said Madonna, who performed at last year’s London portion of the Live Earth global concert.

“I think the state of the world has to do with my sense of urgency and I think I’ve had this sense of urgency for quite a while. I just hadn’t voiced it in my music. So I don’t really think one has to do with the other.

“I do feel like we are living on borrowed time. And I think most people are coming to that understanding and it’s impossible for that no to be reflected in pop culture.”

Madonna on Her Directorial Debut and Mission to Save Malawi

Madonna recently claimed that she was over New York; she still liked to stick her finger in our socket from time to time, but there were no longer so many thrilling sparks. She’s since recanted (see below), and in any event, whether in London or Africa, she still acts just like a New Yorker, control-freaking her way to world domination yet again. Which brings us to her new projects: She’s produced and narrated the documentary I Am Because We Are, about Malawi and its AIDS orphans, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival. She’s directed a feature, Filth and Wisdom, about a would-be rocker. She’s got a new album, Hard Candy. And then there’s all that writhing with Justin Timberlake. She filled us in.

We were a little upset to hear that you don’t find New York exciting anymore.
People have to stop being so literal. I was referring to when I first came to New York and the convergence of the music and art scenes–I mean, my friends were Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. There was this crazy interface for me of art and life, and I don’t see that so much anymore in New York.

It’s not so bad now.
I’m not saying there aren’t exciting people doing exciting things. I’m pretty much being melancholic.

Do you think you could make it in New York now?
I think it would be almost impossible. Record companies are pretty much defunct.

Speaking of the eighties, you were one of the first pop stars to talk about the AIDS crisis. But I’ve never heard you discuss any connection between that and your work in Malawi. Is there one?
There are a lot. One is that I myself feel like a motherless child. I grew up that way. But also the idea that I felt so helpless by the AIDS epidemic that seemed to sweep through Manhattan and claim the lives of so many people that I loved. And I saw how stigmatized the gay community was, and that freaked me out.

You’re now something of an expert on Malawi. But when the activist Victoria Keelan first called you about getting involved, you said, “I don’t even know where that is.” And she hung up on you. Not too many people hang up on you, do they?
I thought that was rather cheeky. She found me quite impertinent in the beginning. Like, “You’re asking the stupidest questions–do you want to help or not?” And she was absolutely correct.

In the movie, you look at one ritual in which a young woman is told she must have sex with a man three times in a day, in order to “cleanse” her.
It’s not my place to judge that tradition. But to have a conversation with a village headsman and say, “Do you realize this is spreading a deadly disease?” and have him say, “Yes, but there’s nothing I can do” is mind-bogglingly frustrating. But we drop bombs on children during wartime, so you think, Well, who’s practicing black magic?

You and Angelina Jolie take a lot of flak for your charity work. People say it’s a fad.
It’s not just celebrities. I think people are just strangely suspicious of people who want to do something good.

The documentary catches your son David on film before you tried to adopt him. What was that first meeting like?
He was basically going to the bathroom on himself. Of course, next day you come back with a truckload of Pampers. It sounds corny, but he just has these big, bright, intelligent, so-aware eyes, and I felt a connection to him.

The legal ground for the adoption was a little murky, setting off controversy [a court is set to review the matter this week]. Meanwhile, a British professor has coined the term “Madonna effect” to describe Westerners who do international adoptions, supposedly at the expense of local kids.
Cool. That’s a grumpy person. You know, there isn’t an AIDS crisis in England. Yes, there are children that need to be adopted here and in the U.K., but no one’s going to die in an orphanage in America.

There’s also been some controversy over links between the Kabbalah Centre and your aid group, Raising Malawi. Could you clarify that connection?
Studying Kabbalah has inspired me to understand that the world does not revolve around me. Who knows if I would have become involved [otherwise]? But Raising Malawi is a separate entity utterly consumed with children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Tom Cruise was at a recent fund-raiser. Do you sympathize with him?
I do. I don’t care if people worship turtles or frogs–if they’re good people, that’s all I care about, and he is a good person. I think he gets a raw deal, just as I think the orphans in Malawi get a raw deal, just as I think a lot of marginalized people get a raw deal.

Tell me about your documentary’s director, Nathan Rissman. This is his first film. He’s a friend?
He’s the husband of my nanny, to tell you the truth. When Nathan showed up, it’s like, “Well, he just can’t hang around, he’s got to have a job.” He would make QuickTime movies of my children and e-mail them to me when I was on trips. They were so clever. So when this project came up, it just seemed like a no-brainer. He did everything from gardening to manning the camera for behind-the-scenes B-roll footage. Never did he say, “I’m not going to Starbucks–I’m too good for that.”

You just directed your first movie, too. And you almost sound more excited about film than music.
Yeah, actually. I have a record to promote and that’s great, but I loved going to the Berlin Film Festival–it was the first time in my career that no one asked me a personal question. When you’re a pop star, everyone feels entitled to know what color your underpants are.

Well, on your new album, Hard Candy, you sing about your great sex life with Guy Ritchie. If you made a movie about that, you might get some of those questions.
Well, if they’re in a film [I direct], I won’t be saying those lines, will I?

The video for your new single, “4 Minutes,” is a tease: You and Justin Timberlake almost crawl into bed, then you dance. You mount him, then you dance?…
It’s meant to be a tease, you know. You’ve only got four minutes to save the world. There’s no time for frivolous behavior!

So you weren’t mocking this expectation that you would kiss Justin, after famously kissing Britney?
No.

Does that lyric “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” relate to your charity work?
No. It’s about, Do I understand this opinion that I’ve adopted or this Zeitgeist that I’ve allowed myself to be swept up in? Because you could have the best intentions but not have enough information and make huge mistakes?…

Which presidential candidate do you think will make the least huge mistakes?
I’m excited about one of the candidates.

But you can’t talk about him because the other one’s husband is in your movie?
That’s not nice … Um … I’m actually a big fan of the Clintons and Obama. There’s me being political–I should run for office!

source : nymag

from The Sun :

Who better to talk loyal Bizarre readers through a Madonna album than the Queen of Pop herself?

Madge has kindly given me a complete rundown on her forthcoming album Hard Candy.

This time round it has a seriously American angle, with hip-hop stars Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and pop king Justin Timberlake adding their influence.

Over to you, Madonna. You have 4 Minutes to tell it all in your own words.

4 MINUTES: (The first single, which hit No1 yesterday on downloads alone. The CD is in store today). If you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the world – the Middle East, the (US) election, the environment, there’s so much chaos and turmoil everywhere. Are you going to be part of the problem or part of the solution? But people also need to be cheered up. We also need to have fun and be given a sense of hope.

CANDY SHOP: This was the first song I wrote with Pharrell. It’s one of my favourites on the record. It personifies the mood I was in making the record – lots of innuendo. You can get so many things in a candy shop!

GIVE IT TO ME: It’s going to be a great song to do live. I can see the whole place jumping. It’s the ultimate “Give me all you’ve got, don’t try to stop me”. And a great song to work out to.

MILES AWAY: This is the first song I wrote with Justin. It’s definitely a song people in my business can relate to. All of us in the studio were like, “Yeah, I get that”.

SHE’S NOT ME: We were listening to a lot of Debbie Harry records. It’s kind of Debbie Harry meets Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive. Pharrell came up with the hook so we concocted a story about the ultimate jilted lover.

BEAT GOES ON: Lucky for us, Kanye West was recording his album across the hall while we were making our record. We were also channelling Marvin Gaye and different artists from the past.

INCREDIBLE: There’s a lot of angst in it and a lot of desire – wanting to recreate some feeling of happiness and fulfilment. But it’s also about abandonment and having a good time. Pharrell was playing me all these songs from Baltimore. There’s this sound coming out of Baltimore. He kept calling it The Be More.

THE DEVIL WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU and VOICES: Both were written in the first chunk of time I had writing with Justin. Devil is a song about a person who everyone has in their life – a person who gets away with everything. Voices is about people playing mind games and who go on ego trips. The line, “Are you walking the dog or is the dog walking you?” . . . it’s like, who’s in control here? These last two songs really make you think and there’s something very orchestral and lush about them. We started out light with Candy Shop and ended in a thoughtful way with Voices. I think it was a good journey to go on.

Ta, Madge. Get your copy of Hard Candy, out next Monday.

Madonna is still a Material Girl… she’s not ready to put out her music for free like Radiohead did last year.

The most successful female singer ever has made enough money to last a dozen lifetimes but is still cautious about asking her fans to judge how much they should pay for her music.

While not the first musicians to do so, Radiohead caused a sensation last year when they put seventh album In Rainbows out as a free download.

The price was determined by the fans.

They could chose to pay just 1p.

The band have never said what they made from this, but ruined the idea when they released the album in December in the usual physical format.

While not many music acts are in the position to let fans pay as they play, Madonna is.

She admitted: “It is a cool idea but I am not sure if it works exactly.

“It is like a new world out there and people have to try a lot of things and make mistakes.

“Some things will work and some things will not, but it is kind of revolutionary and we are in that strange moment – the darkness before the dawn before we really know what is next.

“I don’t know if I want to put my songs out there and ask other people what it is worth, but I am definitely ready to try new things.”

Of course, Madonna, like Radiohead, is free to do what she likes.

On the same day Radiohead self-released their first new album in four years after leaving Capitol, on the internet, Madonna announced she had left Warner Bros, her home for 25 years.

While for most artists, that would be a scary prospect, the woman who has constantly fought against convention is excited. “It is not scary,” she said.

“I wouldn’t even say it is liberating.

“It is just the end of my contract and the record industry is changing.

So the way I make music and the way I get it out to people and the way we market it and release it will also change.

“I am exited about my new deal because it is more of a partnership. After 25 years, I am like, ‘No, I deserve to be a partner’.”

Her new deal is with tour promoter Live Nation, who haven’t sold a single album but will now be part of her albums, touring, merchandising and licensing.

She said: “I worked with Live Nation for my last few tours so they will participate in my tour. But after this record, they will also participate in whatever happens with the record.”

This record is her 11th studio album, Hard Candy, out at the end of this month.

The lead single 4 Minutes, which was co-written with Justin Timberlake and producer Timbaland, is out physically on Monday, although the download is at No.4 and has been in the UK charts a month.

The music industry may be going through a change with young acts such as Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen able to get their music to fans through MySpace before being signed, but Madonna, a musical magpie, finds her own path.

Since her debut in 1982, the 49-year-old has sold more than 200 million albums, is a multi-Grammy award winner and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

She turns 50 in August but it seems the hard in Hard Candy isn’t a description of her tough image, which regularly leaves interviewers such as Jonathan Ross, quaking in their boots.

Madonna revealed: “I love to feel physically strong.

“In fact, I feel stronger now than I did 20 years ago. But I think your physicality is connected to your consciousness, so if your mind is strong, your body will be strong.”

Is there any secret about your physical fitness?

“Yes, I am drinking the magic potion,” she said, laughing.

Questioning a lady how she’s feeling about turning 50 is always tricky. When asked at a roundtable interview in America if 50 is a landmark for a lady, Madonna turned the air cold.

“Wait a minute,” said Madonna. “Stop right there. Is it a landmark for a lady?”

“For everybody,” answered the worried questioner.

“Good.”

How do you feel about turning 5-0?

“It is not a bad word. You can say it.”

A Nicon for female strength, Madonna spouted Girl Power and lived by its rules years before the Spice Girls made it a cartoon phrase.

From the sauciness of Like A Virgin and daughter impowerment in Papa Don’t Preach, Madonna has pushed the boundaries ever further.

Strong females and religious questioning have marked controversial battles with moral crusaders and even the Pope.

Whether it was the controversy of her black Jesus kiss and burning crosses in the video to Like A Prayer, her hotel orgy video for Justify My Love or the Sex book which had explicit naked pictures of her, including S&M scenes and a hint of bestiality, Madonna pushed buttons.

Despite all this and rumours of lesbian flings, Madonna claims her behaviour could have been even more risque.

She said: “I really was not getting up to much. I don’t think I was as naughty as I could have been. What do people think I did when I was in my 20s? I was quite straight.”

What about when Sean Penn, her first husband, famously punched a photographer?

“That was not me, that was my ex-husband,” she said.

But surely she was there?

“It does not mean I did it. And you know about it, so it means it was photographed.”

She and Michael Jackson literally stopped traffic when they were in London in the Eighties, but the levels of interest in stars now is even greater. And the fallout is worse.

You only have to think of Britney Spears, who Madonna kissed along with Christina Aguilera on the MTV awards in 2003.

Madonna admits she isn’t in contact with Britney but thinks she can comeback.

“Anything is possible,” she said.

Now a mum of two, she married Brit film director Guy Ritchie in Scotland’s Skibo Castle in December 2000.

She’ll soon become the adopted mum of Malawian child David and has become a follower of traditional Jewish Kabbalah faith. So perhaps she doesn’t push those buttons in such a sexually-charged manner any more.

But her revealing pink leotard in the video to Hung Up and her dance moves in the 4Minutes promo pour shame on many younger pop starlets. Whether it be the music or the image, a Madonna album in any year is still a big deal.

And it seems, despite her huge fortune and success, as well as movies including her starring role in Evita and directing her first film Filth And Wisdom last year, there’s still more to prove.

She said: “I am sure I was not put on this earth just to make records, so I am sure there are lots of things I want to achieve.

“I’d like to become a better human being.

I’d like to learn more than I already know. I’d like to be a better parent.

“I still have my children to raise.

“That’s a big responsibility and I’m not done with that.

“I would like to direct more films and write them. I have only done one, so to me that is the beginning of that career.

“I want to make more records because I love music.”

She may be 50 in just over four months but Madonna is showing no sign of slowing down.

FIVE QUICKIES FOR MADONNA

Q Is it true that you spent Christmas 2004 in Lapland?

A No.

Q Do you have a favourite between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for president?

A Yes, but don’t ask me.

I am just very happy that it is a woman and an African-American.

Q What do you do to relax?

A Watch movies.

Q Which movies do you like?

A Foreign films.

Q What is your favourite wine?

A Brunello.

source : daily record

Click here to hear it.

Enlisting Timbaland, Pharrell, and Justin Timberlake to help craft her boundary-burning record Hard Candy, Madonna sits down with Fanboy and fashion maven Simon Doonan to discuss the state-of-the-art dance album, her new film that will save the world, and why Lourdes loves to shop with mom

Photographed by Tom Munro
Styled by Arianne Phillips

Wednesday, February 20, is quite possibly one of the most surreal days of my life. Things get off to a wacky start when my cabdriver–I am barreling toward JFK at some ungodly hour–insists on calling me “ma’am” throughout the journey. In an effort to generate a bit of respect, I tell him the purpose of my trip. “I’m off to L.A. today to interview Madonna,” I say in a manly, confident kind of way.

“That’s nice for you, ma’am,” he replies in a skeptical tone revealing that he believes me to be not just a woman, but a thoroughly deluded woman.

The surrealism continues: On the plane, I make a complete spectacle of myself by sobbing all the way through the 80-minute documentary I Am Because We Are. Madonna produced this devastatingly powerful film to highlight the plight of the orphaned and HIV-afflicted population of Malawi, in southeastern Africa. If her goal has always been to engage the emotions of her public, this may be Madge’s most successful venture ever.

After a recuperative nap, I plug in Hard Candy, Madonna’s new CD, and indulge in a session of age-inappropriate jiggling. As I groove and shimmy and sing along–”My sugar is raw/ sticky and sweet”–and contemplate the increasingly multifaceted tour de force that is Madonna Louise Ciccone, a serious thought occurs to me: Could it be that Madge has made the transition from diva to deity?

My admiration for La Ciccone is long-standing. Her trajectory and desire for glamour and self-expression have inspired and awed me for more than two decades. What irks some writers about Madonna–her discipline, her drive, her lack of self- destructive tendencies–is exactly what makes me love that little spitfire more and more. By clawing her way to the top, she gave me, and millions of marginalized freaks just like me, permission to claw our way to the lower half of the middle–and I, for one, am hugely grateful. In an era when downward aspiration is applauded and rewarded, Madonna’s thrusting, szooshy positivity remains an exhilarating force.

This year, Madonnaworld is reaching a bewildering apotheosis that has even die-hard Madge-ophiles like me reeling backward on our disco roller skates. In addition to her documentary, she has directed an independent movie titled Filth and Wisdom. Girlfriend has also become a globally respected philanthropist. One more hit song and she could beat Elvis’ record for racking up the most top-10 singles of all time. Diva to deity.

As I drive down Sunset to rendezvous with our lady of the cone bras, I realize that I am insanely nervous. Even though I have met her, albeit briefly, on a couple of occasions, I feel as if I am about to encounter God–or have a colonoscopy, or both. I try to stay calm, but it’s not easy. I am a big, screaming gay fan who, if he doesn’t get a grip on himself, runs the risk of making Kathy Bates’ character in Misery look like a happy, well-balanced enthusiast.

Madonna lives in an incredibly glam Gloria Swanson-esque Hollywood mansion, and when I say lives, I mean lives! The chicly opulent decor, the paintings (some of which, like my day, are extremely surreal), the landscaping, and the bustling retinue reveal that Mr. and Mrs. Guy Ritchie are totally large-ing it. We’re talking Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The lady of the house appears in the doorway of her music room.

Catherine Deneuve said that as a woman ages, “Il faut choisir entre le visage et le derriere.” Rough translation: She has to decide between a big ass or a haggard face. Madonna never got the memo. She has both a tight face and a tight ass. She is perfection.

ELLE: My cabdriver thought I was a woman and kept calling me “ma’am.” Do I look like a woman to you?
MADONNA: No. But maybe it’s the Paul Smith shirt. [I look down and clock my hallucinogenic art-nouveau Liberty-print button-down and realize that she may be onto something.]
ELLE: Enough about me. Let’s talk about your outfit. I want details.
Madonna’s elegant at-home ensemble is a symphony in beige and cream: Think Faye Dunaway in Network with a bit of Jean Harlow thrown in.
M: The heels are Miu Miu. The blouse is Diane von Furstenburg. The cardigan is H&M, from my own collection. Undies? Can’t remember, ’cause I always cut the tags off. The pants are from River Island, one of Lola’s [Lourdes'] favorite shops on Oxford Street. I’m having a high-low day.
ELLE: Do you ever go shopping incognito?
M: Lola likes us to do that. The incognito never really lasts very long, because everyone knows I wear baseball caps. So I guess I don’t really have an incognito.
ELLE: What’s the dynamic among your three kids?
M: Lola [age 11] rules the roost. She is extremely maternal toward David [the much talked-about Malawian toddler, age two and a half, the circumstances of whose adoption are clarified in Madge's documentary]. He is the apple of everyone’s eye right now. Lola is in major competition with Rocco [age seven], but he’s starting to fight back. But when nobody’s looking, the two of them still creep into bed and cuddle. It’s a closet kind of love.
ELLE: Who does the disciplining between you and Guy?
M: Oh, definitely me. Guy’s a softie when it comes to our kids.
ELLE: How do you strike a balance?
M: Work is important to both of us. We have to be highly organized and navigate family responsibilities.
ELLE: When was the last time you took a family vacation?
M: Guy and I and the kids went to India over Christmas. We really got away from it all.
ELLE: Does he share your passion for Malawi?
M: Yes.
ELLE: What’s his favorite hobby?
M: Jujitsu. I don’t get it–grown men throwing each other around. But he loves it.
ELLE: What do you talk about in bed?
M: None of your business!

CHECK OUT THE MAY ISSUE OF ELLE, ON NEWSSTANDS NOW, FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH MADONNA.

source : elle.com