Madonna: The Rolling Stone Interview
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The ethereal title song itself, which opens with Madonna quietly reciting the Rosary, seems to portend a personal spiritual purge. It is the debut of the philosophical Madonna, who, at 30, seems to be making a public-policy changeover: Getting It On has been stoically supplanted by Getting On With It.
Lately, she is consoling herself with capitalism. On the day I meet with her to begin the first of two wide-ranging discussions, Pepsi announces that it has enlisted the singer to blitz the cola-war zone. (She will reportedly earn $5 million for one year’s allegiance, which would include commercials and tour sponsorship.) In addition, she has been busily overseeing the editing of the “Like a Prayer” video and preparing for her role as a cheeky vixen in Warren Beatty’s film Dick Tracy.
Nevertheless, she arrives at the designated Hamburger Hamlet, alone and serene, and at once disposes herself with playful confidence. Scruffily dressed in tattered chic, she slides into a back booth and pertly flags down a waitress. (“Yoo-hoo! Could we get some coffee?”). She is discovered only once, by an archetypal young Hollywood hustler who presses into her hand a film script he hopes to direct. She endures his protracted schmoozy pitch with bemused graces. “Being rude doesn’t get you anywhere,” she tells me after the interloper says “Ciao” and disappears. “You end it quicker by being nice.”
For the second session, I am summoned to the new hilltop hacienda — a white, stark, airy affair, replete with marble floors and important art. Among her collected objets is a painting by her idol Frida Kahlo, whose own marriage, to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, was notoriously stormy. Also on display are a few framed photographs of Rivera’s mistresses. Accordingly, when Madonna steps out of her bedroom, she has traded guises. Hair down, heels spiked, she radiates retro-glamour — a gossamer goddess in billowy black loungewear with matching brassiere showing through the gauzy décolleté. Even her bearing this time seems a tad regal as she flounces onto an overstuffed ocher-satin divan and accepts inquiries. “Please,” she wryly instructs a few chattering associates in the next room, “don’t anyone bother me. I am being interviewed!” Throughout both conversations, however, she good-naturedly plumbs her feelings and, even in the matter of Sean, manages to comport herself with jaunty charm. Still, as an icebreaker, I brandish an early copy of the Playboy issue containing La Toya Jackson’s nude pictures, thinking Madonna might enjoy the momentary reprieve of basking in another woman’s scandal. And, of course, she does.
Have you seen La Toya? Perhaps you could share any spontaneous observations.
[She lunges for the magazine] Give me that! No shit! [She pores over the pages, amused.] She had a tit job, for sure! This isn’t bad. They’re funny. But you see only tits? Major tit job! Well, La Toya, this is a shocker. Oooh! The Jackson family must be outraged. This is desperation. Well, maybe she’ll get a job out of it.
Jumping from one kind of exposure to another, I suppose there’s no tactful way to ask you about the dissolution of your marriage.
[She smiles coyly] Inquiring minds want to know? Now you’re gonna get all nosy, huh? Well, this is something incredibly close to me right now, and very painful. I have a difficult time talking about it. You can ask, but I can refuse to answer you.
Fair enough. You’ve said in the past, “I’d rather walk through a fire than walk away from one.” Are you attracted to flame?
Am I attracted to pain? Is that what you’re trying to say? I’m attracted to obstacles I need to overcome. I’m interested in facing challenges, things that are going to be harder rather than easier.
The song on your album “Till Death Do Us Part” portrays a tormented, volatile and dangerous marriage. The implication is autobiographical. How honest are the lyrics?
Like most of the songs on my album, it’s very much drawn from my life, factually speaking, but it’s fictionalized, too. “Till Death Do Us Part” is about a destructive relationship that is powerful and painful. In this song, however, it’s a cycle that you can’t get out of until you die. It’s futile. I wanted the song to be very shocking, and I think it was. It’s about a dysfunctional relationship, a sadomasochistic relationship that can’t end. Now that’s where the truth stops, because I would never want to continue a terrible relationship forever and ever and ever until I die.
Has Sean heard the song?
Yes. And he loves it, strangely enough [laughs]. But Sean is very, very keen on being brutally frank in his work. He’s attracted to writers and artists who don’t mince words.
Do you ever think you married too young?
No.
Do you think the odds were stacked against this marriage from the start? It seemed people defied it to succeed.
Oh, yes. I felt that no one wanted us to be together. They celebrated our union, and then they wanted us to be apart. There were rumors about us getting a divorce a week after the wedding. We fought that. And, yes, that is difficult. I don’t know if anyone can do it [under those circumstances]. You have to be really, really strong and immune. Very sure of yourself.
Madonna: The Rolling Stone Interview, Page 2 of 7