As the fifth anniversary of Madonna and Britney Spears’ kiss at the MTV Video Music Awards nears, it seems fair that the subject of Spears would come up in the course of Madonna’s interview with Vanity Fair’s Rich Cohen.
However, if events played out exactly as they appear in the magazine’s April cover story, Madonna didn’t even give Cohen the chance to pose a pointed question on the subject matter of Spears.
“Yes, I know. I know exactly what you’re going to say. It’s very painful,” Madonna, who turns 50 this summer, told Cohen when she sensed Spears was coming up. Cleverly, she answered the would-be question in the context of a subject she’d rather shed light on, Africa.
“When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they’re in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that’s a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who’s worse off? You know what I mean?”
The enigmatic Material Girl is rarely portrayed as thoroughly as she is in this issue of Vanity Fair. Kabbalah, the adoption of her son David from Malawi, the impact of having her family and their television habits are among the subjects touched upon in the piece. Madonna’s answers seem candid, and maybe a little humorless if your mind’s eye defaults to an image of Madonna in the ‘80s. Either way, it’s worth the read.

Madonna was bullied at school for being a “weirdo”.

The ‘4 Minutes’ singer was shunned by her classmates because she chose to concentrate on her music rather than experiment with drugs like her peers.

She said: “In high school I wasn’t a hippie or a stoner, so I ended up being the weirdo. I was interested in classical ballet and music, so the kids were quite mean if you were different.

“I was one of those people that people were mean to. When that happened, instead of being a doormat, I decided to emphasise my differences. But if your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you’re always going to be disappointed.”

Madonna - who has three children with husband Guy Ritchie - also revealed she initially found it difficult to work with Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams on her upcoming album ‘Hard Candy’.

She added to Vanity Fair magazine: “It did take time to get comfortable. It’s not like we hit it off right away. Writing is very intimate. You have to be vulnerable and it’s hard to do that with strangers.”

Madonna, 50, dressed up as Edith Piaf for a Kabbalah fancy dress party. She wore her best diamond jewelry and oozed mysterious charm in her costume and fur outfit. Her husband, Guy Ritchie, 39, chose to wear the costume of the cartoon character Asterix. He wore a casual white tunic, platinum plaits, thick iron bar moustache and a Viking helmet with horns. Madonna’s costume was classy and flattering while Guy’s costume was understated.

The Kabbalah party was to celebrate the Jewish festival of Purim. It was to commemorate Queen Esther’s overturn of a plot to kill Jews in Persia. Madonna had also taken the Hebrew name Esther in 2005 when she started seriously following the Kabbalah. It was rumored that Guy did not entirely agree with the religion but he participated for the sake of his wife.