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You’re going to see the interview everyone is gonna be talking about.
Madonna, honest, unplugged, one on one with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden and
the pop icon talked to you Cynthia about things that she normally leaves private
but you were able to get it out of her.
Well Robyn it’s great to see you. It’s fascinating.
You know what Madonna is not, is worth and fuzzy and she regards interview
just as the same pleasure the rest of us reserve for root canals.
What she is a true American original.
Tiny in person but her accomplishments of course are huge.
She is quite simply the top selling female recording artist of all time
but that’s not enough for her.
She’s busier than ever.
On February the 3rd the film that she co-wrote and directed called W.E. opens.
Two days later she performs at the Super Bowl.
She’s got Into The Groove,
Vogue
and of course Express Yourself.
For nearly three decades, Madonna has created iconic songs and outrageous moments
but even by mega Madonna’s standards, these next few weeks are going to be huge.
There’s a new multi-million dollar music deal.
You had just signed a new record deal. Forty million dollars?
Nobody’s handed me forty million dollars, I don’t know about that.
Looks good on paper.
She’s also headlining a little show at, you might have heard of it,
the Super Bowl, in front of some hundred million viewers.
It’s quite a daunting task because I have you know
in the middle of this very important event in American’s lives,
I have to put on the greatest show on Earth.
No pressure there. And then there is her passion project.
Five years in the making.
The opening of the new movie she co-wrote and directed, W.E.
Who’s W.E.?
Wallis and Edward, silly.
The movie centers on the fabled romance of King Edward the Eighth and Wallis Simpson,
the American divorcee he gave up the throne for in 1936.
Your family will never stand for it. The Prime Minister won’t stand for it.
Then I’ll give up the throne.
All the infinite topics, why this topic?
I wanted to know why he gave up so much for her and what it must feel like to be loved so much.
Have you ever been loved like that?
I don’t know. That’s a hard question to answer because I’ve never fallen in love with a king.
I’ve certainly fallen in love with people who were willing to make big sacrifices for me
possibly not as big as I would have liked them to make.
And I’ve made very big scarifies for people I have loved and I think that one does.
You’re a romantic.
I am, sorry.
These days she’s romantic with her twenty-four boyfriend, dancer Brahim Zaibat.
Well you’re famously dating younger men, lots of talk about that.
Is there a lot of talk about that? Aren’t people tired of that subject.
No.
Boring old chestnut. Okay, what do you wanna know?
I wanna know, why?
I didn’t choose to write down on a piece of paper,
“I’m going to have now a relationship with a younger man.”
That’s just what happened.
You’ve said that being with someone who your children respect is important.
Yes, absolutely. It’s a lot to live up to.
Well then there’s you. I mean it’s hard…
I’m the easy one.
I believe you, millions won’t. Are you the easy one?
No, I don’t know. I mean,
I go home and I go wash my wash and I put on my sweatpants and I lay down on the bed
and I say, “oh please rub my feet” and you know, he says, “no you rub my feet.”
So you know, behind the curtain I’m just like everybody else.
Maybe but not many of us are working on a new album right now with the likes of M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj.
Minaj took to Twitter last month claiming Madonna had kissed her.
You’re kissing girls again.
I am?
Nicki Minaj said you kissed her right on the mouth.
I did but it was her birthday. I just gave her a birthday kiss.
Tongue?
No tongue. There was no tongue. Who said tongue?
I’m asking.
She has lovely lips. We sang happy birthday to her and then I kissed her on the mouth.
A chaste birthday kiss.
A long way from Madonna’s more risqué days.
Remember Erotica and her Sex book?
Well now she’s explaining sex to her kids.
Have you had the sex talk with the older ones?
With my daughter of course.
My son I don’t think he’s ready just yet. He’s eleven.
I give him another year. Yeah.
And do you have the book at home?
The book?
Your Sex book at home or is it like banned at this point?
It’s neither banned, I’m sure it’s somewhere in a file but I don’t ban it.
I do say to them sometimes, “Look your mother is an artist, this is what I do. I lived my life pushing the envelope.”
I’m not gonna suddenly stop doing that because I have children.
In the final minutes of our conversation we let viewers pick the topics.
What is that?
These are the questions that people wrote in and we are not leaving here until you answer all of them.
What was the last meal you cooked entirely by yourself?
I don’t think I’ve ever cooked an entire meal by myself.
Ever?
No.
Who makes the food?
Everybody. I have a cook. My daughter likes to cook. My son likes to cook.
Do you have anything you can cook?
My nanny cooks. My housekeeper cooks. My drivers cook. Everybody cooks.
Do you cook anything?
No but I do everything else. Do I have to do everything?
Do you miss being married?
Certain parts of it yeah.
What parts?
Just feeling like a part of being a part of a family unit and not having to make all the decisions on my own.
Of all these, there’s one question that almost blew up the internet.
Do you have any idea what it is?
I don’t know.
They wanna know, what you think about Lady Gaga?
Lady Gaga has admitted being influenced by Madonna
but when Born This Way sounded more than a little similar to Express Yourself,
some wondered if influence was plain out copying.
It feels
reductive.
Is that good?
Look it up.
Well of course we looked it up.
Reductive means simplified or crude.
So Robyn, not so much I don’t think.
And she says a lot more about Lady Gaga tonight on 20/20.
Wow that was something to see with her.
Look. I have to say she of course respects Gaga as a talent
but she has a lot to say about this than she has ever said before.
Super Bowl plans. What’d she say about that?
Well I suggested that she jumped off a plane in onto the field and she says,
“Cynthia there’s a room on top of the stadium, not such a good idea.”
I learned subsequently it is retractable but she has lots of plans.
The night we talked to her she was interviewing 150 dancers.
Wow she’s busy.
It’s gonna be a celebration.
It will. Enough said. Cynthia thank you.
And Madonna’s movie W.E. opens Feburary 3rd. Can’t get enough of Madonna.
Look at her photos online and of course all of Cynthia’s interview tonight on 20/20.