MADGE BRINGS OUT THE BIG GUNS "… Madonna has hired Fiona Shackleton, the lawyer who represented the Prince of Wales when his first marriage came to an end. Nothing but the best for the Queen of Pop. Mrs Shackleton also represented Sir Paul McCartney in his divorce from Heather Mills, reducing his former wife’s claim to a fraction of what she had requested. Given the dizzying sums at stake in the Madonna/Ritchie settlement – they have an estimated joint fortune of £300 million, and one observer suggested that Ritchie could be awarded up to £150 million – it may be a wise appointment."
Hey, did you hear? Madonna and Guy Ritchie are divorcing. This really caught us off guard, seeing as how they always looked so happy in all of their pictures. Take this photo at left, for example. See that undeniable romance? No? Well, neither do we. And the rest of the pictures are even colder. It's a shame these two kids couldn't make it work.
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Now that Madonna and Guy Ritchie's marriage has gone the way of their Swept Away remake, let's look into how much rapidly devaluing cash and assets are going to change hands, shall we?
Summer, the season of slow news in New York, was revitalized this year with scandal of all scandals: Rumors of Madonna stepping out on Guy Ritchie to enjoy a secret affair with Yankees all-star Alex Rodriguez. The New York tabloids had a field day, bouncing between denials from Madonna's rep Liz Rosenberg and tips from Madonna's doormen about A-Rod sightings. Meanwhile, Ritchie flew from London to New York so the couple could be seen doing normal things, like dining for the paparazzi, flaunting their children for the paparazzi, and loving each other for the paparazzi. Most saw through the charade. Then gossips in London began leaking details of on-going spats between the famous married couple, and how they basically led separate lives already, sleeping in different beds and, often, separate cities. And then yesterday came the penultimate headline: Britain's The Sun claimed a divorce was imminent. And today? Confirmation. Except the timing is all wrong, or so we imagined.
MADONNA-RITCHIE MARRIAGE OVER? "MADONNA and GUY RITCHIE are to divorce, The Sun can exclusively reveal. A statement confirming their marriage is over has been prepared and is set to be released imminently. The couple are going public with their split because they 'can’t bear to live with the pretence any longer'."
LAW TO BE WATSON TO DOWNEY JR'S HOLMES? "In what has become a guessing game that may have piqued the interest of the great detective himself, the latest name to surface in the who-will-play-Watson merry-go-round is Jude Law. Variety reports that Law is negotiating to join Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s 'Sherlock Holmes' after a host of other names like Russell Crowe, Gerard Butler and Colin Farrell were tied to the project via Internet rumors."
• Aubrey O'Day hates her reputation, so she says a lot of stuff about sex and poses provocatively to change her image. Good work. [Yeeeah]
• Katie Holmes makes her Broadway debut tonight, but, as usual, it's all about Tom Cruise. [PS]
• Tara Reid is perfectly sober. [INO]
• Madonna's husband thinks the best kind of sex only lasts four seconds. We're not surprised. [ICYDK]
• Speaking of Madge, here's a video of her falling during a concert. [DListed]
• Good, clean fun: Name the celebrity cameltoe. [CityRag]
Guy Ritchie, mistakenly thinking he's the newest authority on health:
Sugar kills. Think of the calories in sugar. Fat kills more people than anything else. Sugar is responsible for a lot of deaths, arguably more than crack cocaine.
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• The latest round of leaked Miley Cyrus photos make us feel like we're on To Catch a Predator. [Yeeeah]
• Mario Lopez looks like a d-bag even when he's just standing still. [INO]
• Jennifer Lopez won't let those pesky twins keep her from starring in box office failures. [DListed]
• There's rumors of childish drama on the set of Gossip Girl. Um, obviously. [PS]
• Jenna Jameson's covered in blood but still working the pole. Commitment. [HT]
• Nevermind, Madonna and Guy Ritchie won't be renewing their vows after all. Let the divorce rumors recommence. [ICYDK]
• Jessica Simpson's father threatens Dallas Cowboys fans around the country: "She's coming to the games this year, so you better get ready. She's a fan from the beginning to the end." Or until she gets dumped. [PS]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are considering asking Bono to be the godfather to the holy twins, which pretty much seals those kids' fate in rehab. [INO]
• Denise Richards is still campaigning to win the title of Most Vile Person Ever. [DListed]
• Lindsay Lohan was hit by a motorcycle over the weekend in NYC. There were no injuries, but father Michael still felt the urge to blab about it to every media outlet who would listen. [Yeeeah]
• Britney Spears is on vacation — but has yet to learn how to escape the paparazzi. [HT]
• Desperation: Madonna and Guy Ritchie will renew their wedding vows in a pathetic attempt to shoot down those pesky divorce rumors. [ICYDK]
Chris Ciccone wrapped up his two-part interview today on Good Morning America with a smile on his face and a new batch of insults for his sister Madonna. For someone who claims to love his sibling, he sure has an interesting way of showing it. And as for hope that the two will reconcile, Chris says that depends on whether Guy Ritchie cleans up his act. Because this rift between Chris and Madonna has nothing to do with this stupid tell-all book that he admits is all about the money.
Bonnie Fuller, queen wasp of the wretched hive that is the tabloid world, shares this news in Advertising Age today: Madonna and Alex Rodriguez's very public love affair, which tore apart the latter's marriage, has been going on for more than half a year. Also – and if this is true it's unbelievably insidious – the whole thing might be little more than a publicity ploy in which Rodriguez is getting played!
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It really should be Madonna’s year. She’s got a new album out (although it’s been panned by critics and fans), she’s about to embark on an international tour this fall (to perform lyrics that include “Don’t pretend you’re not hungry, I’ve got plenty to eat / Come on in to my store, cause my sugar is sweet”), and her adoption of David Banda, once mired in controversy, is finally being made official. And then she had to come to New York.
It’s then that rumors of a romance with Yankees star Alex Rodriguez really began pouring out, forcing publicist Liz Rosenberg to repeatedly shoot them down with the excuse that they share the same manager, Guy Oseary, rather than acknowledge the long-standing trouble in her client’s marriage to Guy Ritchie. And it’s then that Madonna began taking the blame for the marital woes between A-Rod and wife Cynthia, despite the baseball player’s well-known man-about-town romancing, all of which forced Cynthia to run off to Paris to spend time with “friend” Lenny Kravitz, who just happened to once date Madonna.
And all of that’s before her brother even has a chance to make the morning show rounds to plug his tell-all book.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES "Diners at New York City's 'Cesca, an Italian eatery on the Upper West Side, got a surprise Tuesday night when Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie walked in, holding hands."
Madonna has been in this industry long enough to know that she should have fueled divorce speculation back when her album was coming out, because she is getting more attention now than she has in a long time. The latest rumors to hit Madge involve a certain Yankees baseball player, who has been making late-night visits to her NYC apartment while soon-to-be-ex Guy Ritchie is away.
[Alex] Rodriguez, 32, has made numerous solo nighttime visits to Madonna, 49, at her spacious home and would sneak out 'as late as midnight.' Says [a] source, 'All the doormen are talking.' … Rodriguez attended Madonna's April 30 NYC concert; the singer sat in his seats at a Yankees game on June 22 (it was the first time she ever was photographed at a Yankees game).
Oh, and by the way: A-Rod is married. Naturally.
[Source]
Next month, Chris Ciccone, the charming gent at left and the younger sibling of former American Madonna, will be releasing a "graphic and devastating" tell-all about his astronomically more accomplished sister. What a dick! But rumors say Madge started it by ditching the gay Ciccone for Guy Ritchie, who, according to Rupert Everett, is "uncomfortable around queens." (Apparently not the "Queen of Pop" kind of queens.)
About what Christopher's book could reveal, one worried Madonna confidante said: "He was there through the crazy years and has many stories to tell, I'm sure. He's seen it all. Oh, my."
If we find out Madonna engaged in premarital sex and recreational drug use, she's dead to us.
HIP HOLMES? THE GAME IS AFOOT! "Guy Ritchie has signed on to write and direct a reimagining of super sleuth Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros. Lionel Wigram and Dan Lin are producing the movie, which takes its cues from a forthcoming comic that Wigram wrote as a selling tool for a new take on the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character. The concept sees the character be more adventuresome and less stuffy than previous screen incarnations and mines on more obscure character traits."
Beautiful gym rat Madonna tells Elle magazine that she and husband Guy Ritchie sleep with their PDAs under their pillows, just like crazy people.
She said: "We lie right next to each other with our BlackBerrys under our pillows. It's not unromantic, it's practical.
"I'm sure loads of couples have their BlackBerrys in bed with them.
"I often wake up in the middle of the night and remember that I've forgotten something, so I jump up and make notes."
Critically important as they are, it's amazing Madge and Guy aren't worried about damaging the BlackBerrys when they cry themselves to sleep at night about what chores their lives have become.
Editor
