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[paparazzi shouting]

She is arguably the most talked
about woman on the planet.

With over 300 million albums
sold worldwide,

she is now, quite simply, the
top-selling artist of all time.

Every female pop star that has
come out, they're always hailed
as "the next Madonna."

Her raunchy image
and catchy pop lyrics

have captivated fans
for nearly 30 years.

That was the game changer.

That was when people were like,
"Oh, my God, who is this girl?

She is going to be
the biggest star on the planet."

And her controversial
personal life

continues to make headlines
all around the world.

[reporter]
Can you tell us why you're
adopting again, Madonna?

No.

Today, she is one
of entertainment's

wealthiest women.

Her ambition
apparently knows no bounds.

She is the master
of reinvention,

a true Renaissance woman.

Not content with
just singing,

she is also a writer,
dancer, producer,

director, actor,

and businesswoman
extraordinaire.

She went after everything
she ever wanted.

She is the one and only...

Madonna.

[paparazzi shouting]

Right in front of you, please.
Right in front of you.
Right here.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone

was born into
a large immigrant family

on August 16, 1958,
near Detroit.

Her father, Tony,
was of Italian descent,

and her mother,
also called Madonna,

was French Canadian.

Both were devout Catholics.

[Weiss]
They grew up at a time
when Michigan was--

before it hit
the economic skids.

She grew up in a relatively
affluent household.

She identified really early on
with black culture.

She would love dancing
to The Temptations

and would dance
with the little girls
in her neighborhood,

and she'd tell stories
that they would beat her
and beat her and beat her,

but all she wanted
to do was dance with them,
and eventually they were like,

"All right, you can do it."

And that's obviously
a theme of persistence that--

I think the one thing that no
one can take away from Madonna,

no matter how much you dislike
her music, is you kind of have
to respect her ambition.

[Parker]
She was one of six children,
she was the third of six,

which is interesting,
because if you believe
in anything about birth order,

usually you think it's
the oldest ones who are
the high achievers.

But she was a middle child,
and maybe that had something
to do with

why she was such an extrovert
and she sort of had to fight
to get attention.

[Pearson]
The kind of Catholic
upbringing she had

meant that it was rather strict
with very enforced parameters,

and there was a lot of
religious symbolism in her life.

Madonna said she grew up
surrounded by nuns and priests

who were always over
at the house,

And, of course, we see
the influences of that
later on in her career.

[Cohen]
Religion was never too far away

from her image,
from her lyrical themes,

and from her videos as well.

It got her in
a lot of trouble, too.

[Parker]
There's a lot
of Catholic imagery

that showed up
in very subversive ways
in her later work,

particularly and most famously
the "Like A Prayer" video

that ended up
almost getting banned

and resulted in a controversial
fallout with her Pepsi deal.

♪ When you call my name
it's like a little prayer ♪

♪ I'm down on my knees
I wanna take you there ♪

That video was full of all sorts
of Catholic imagery.

She's making out with a black
Jesus statue come to life,
there's burning crosses,

and in her fashion as well,
like the crucifixes she'd wear.

You know, she definitely was
kind of like the bad
Catholic girl.

[Weiss]
To have that kind
of schism that young,

where you all of a sudden
are forced to question
and stop believing,

and that's one of the themes
that runs through her music.

"Do you believe or not believe?
Are you a virgin or a whore?"

What's right, you know,
and what's bullshit?

Then in 1963, when she was
only five years old,

came the devastating news
that would have

an irrevocable impact
upon the rest of her life.

Her 30-year-old mother Madonna

was diagnosed
with breast cancer.

[Weiss]
Her mother had worked
as an X-ray technician.

It was at a time where they
didn't really have lead aprons,

making it so you'd
block the radiation.

She'd developed breast cancer
while she was pregnant with
Madonna's younger sister.

[Pearson]
By the time she start treatment,
it was really too late.

The death of Madonna's mother,
she has said over
and over again,

was kind of a very
pivotal point in her life.

Everything changed
from that point on.

Her father
pretty quickly remarried.

A woman who'd actually been
their housecleaner.

A woman that Madonna
detested and fought with
throughout her childhood.

I think Madonna's
rebellious nature really
began from that point.

By the time she was
an adolescent,

Madonna's subversive attitude
started to shine through.

It was an attitude which would
emerge time and time again

in her music.

[Parker]
What's interesting is probably a
lot of people would be surprised

to find out that Madonna
was actually an "A" student.

Because she has
this rebellious side and
obviously what she went into,

people probably thought she was
someone who was always cutting
class and was sort of a truant,

Rizzo from Greasetype of girl.

[Weiss] They say
that she wasn't the most
charismatic person in the world,

which is weird
because you see Madonna now

and you think of her
as poised and confident
and she knows what she wants.

When you're a teenager,
it's not necessarily like that,

and all the things that people
would say about her were--

She was a dancer,
she got straight A's,

she went from a cheerleader
to dance team,

but no one ever
pegged her for stardom.

By 1977, Madonna
had made it clear

that she couldn't wait
to get out of Michigan.

New York, the mecca of art
and culture beckoned,

and it wasn't long before
she got the opportunity
to move there

on a six-week scholarship
to the Alvin Ailey
American Dance Theater.

[Weiss]
She knew that she
had to be in New York.

It was the year The Ramones
are coming out.

The following year in England
The Sex Pistols blow up,

and everyone knows about that.

And then you have The Ramones,
you have the Talking Heads,

you have Blondie,
you have all these bands
at CBGB's in New York.

It's this mecca.
It's cheap, it's grungy.

[Cohen]
She got started the way a lot
of, unfortunately, young women

had to get started,

which was, you know,
to maybe do some, you know,

photography she may not
have been proud of,

to do some dancing that she
might not have been proud of,

just really ingratiating herself
in the disco and dance scenes

in New York City.

By 1979, Madonna
was dating Dan Gilroy

from the pop punk band
Breakfast Club,

and not surprisingly,
it wasn't long before
she joined the group.

[Cohen] It's pretty amazing
to think, just knowing what
we know about Madonna,

that she actually played drums
and guitar in that band.

They may have been lovers, but
Gilroy didn't pull any punches

when it came to Madonna.

[Weiss]
There's a famous quote
where he goes to her,

"You're all naked ambition
and no talent."

And it goes, again,
back to Andy Warhol.

He was talented,
but no one's gonna be like,
"Andy Warhol's a great painter."

But he had big ideas,
and he knew how to wrap them
in a pop format,

and Madonna had the same thing.

[Parker]
But eventually she decided
to go out on her own

and move away from the rock
and punk thing she was doing

as a sort of, like,
you know, New York punk person,

and go into dance music.

And she connected
with Stephen Bray,

who was a fellow student of hers
at University of Michigan,

and they went on to do
a million hits.

Her big hits like
"Into the Groove" and
"Express Yourself," you know.

He was one of her
primary songwriters for years.

New York music producer
Mark Kamins

then helped her to
get a record deal
with Sire Records,

and with the help of
Stephen Bray, she wrote
her first hit, "Everybody."

♪ Come on

♪ Everybody, come on,
dance and sing ♪

♪ Everybody, get up
and do your thing ♪

"Everybody" is still one of
my favorite Madonna songs.

It's really funny 'cause I
recently read that the video she
did for that song cost $1500.

I'm like,
"It cost that much? It looks
like it cost five dollars."

But it's great. It's just her.

She's not even looking
as sexy as she later did.

Her hair's short, it's brown.
She's dressed in these clothes
from like Newsies.

Like these baggy
earth-tone clothes.

It's just her dancing with
two people in the background,
as low budget as it can get,

but it's like
a totally compelling video,
and the song is great.

♪ Dance and sing
Get up and do your thing ♪

It's not a very deep song.

It's not gonna
bring about world peace,

but it set the template that she
is great at doing these upbeat,

let's throw caution
to the wind, let's not
give a crap about tomorrow,

let's dance all night
party songs.

It was perfect for a single.
Wasn't one of her
bigger singles.

I think some of the stuff
on her first album is some
of the best stuff she ever did.

♪ Get up and do your thing

"Everybody"
proved the springboard
to success for Madonna,

and in 1982, one of her
first performances ever

was filmed at the hip
New York club Danceteria.

And now "No Entiendes"
is proud to present...

the world premiere
of Sire recording artist

Madonna!

♪ Everybody, come on,
dance and sing ♪

That was a legendary club where
LL Cool J was the elevator man,

the Beastie Boys and
Keith Haring are dishwashers.

It would go from 8:00 to 8:00
every night in New York,

and she would just dance there.

She'd dance
at all the gay nightclubs.
She was going out every night.

She was seeing these cool girls
and kind of able to steal
their style a little bit,

and she was able to mold herself
into the idea of the person
that she wanted to be.

Buoyed by
the success of "Everybody,"

Madonna convinced Sire
to give her an album deal,

and her eponymous album
broke the music market in 1983.

Few realized at the time

that the girl
with the new poppy sound

would go down in history
as one of music's most
famous female artists.

[Cohen]
It was a disco diva record

at a time where there
wasn't a whole lot of
disco music going around.

And she managed to write songs
that were commercial enough--

co-writing with good partners--

so that they stood out as songs
as well as dance chart items.

The second single off the album
was "Holiday,"

and it really put Madonna
in the spotlight

as a force to be reckoned with.

♪ Holiday

♪ Celebrate

"Holiday" was Madonna's
first big hit single,

and it did so well
that it kind of launched her,

because she got on the hit
TV show American Bandstand
with Dick Clark,

which was really
afternoon appointment viewing
on the weekends.

And is she hot.
This is Madonna!

[cheering]

She got a little
interview with Dick.

We are a couple of weeks
into the new year.

What do you hope will happen,
not only in 1984 but for the
rest of your professional life?

What are your dreams?
What's left?

To rule the world.There you go.

It was such an unusual thing
to say, because at that time,
nobody knew who she was.

She had one hit single
to her name.

But looking back on it,
it's certainly interesting,

and it came true,
to some degree.

The first time I heard Madonna
was on radio, top-40 radio.

It was "Holiday,"
and I'm gonna admit
I thought she was black.

I thought it was
an R&B black artist.

I think a lot of people
thought that.

When they later saw
the image that she had--
that she was blond and Italian--

people were surprised.

Then "Borderline" came out,

which is one of
her best songs ever

and the song
that broke her through.

♪ Stop playin' with my heart
Finish what you start ♪

♪ When you make my love
come down ♪

Everything was
very much tied to image.

I always will associate
all those early Madonna songs
in my mind with the video.

And in that video, I actually
literally found a striped hat
that my mom had,

and I found a bow and glued it
on and put it on my head

so I could have the hat
Madonna had in that video.

♪ You just keep on pushing
my love over the borderline ♪

Madonna's early pop songs,
no matter, like, whether you
hate Madonna now,

whether you are
the biggest Madonna fan ever,

you kind of can't
deny those songs.

Because still to this day,
almost 30 years later,

you put on "Borderline"
and girls will dance to it.

At the end of the day,
that's kind of the general
barometer for pop music.

If you can get girls to dance
to it, you will be popular.

[Parker] There was something
about her that, even now, was
what I think I liked about her.

From day one, no one told her,
"Wear rubber bracelets,"
or "Dress like this,"

or "Roll around on the floor."

I always felt everything
about her image--

the way she presented herself,

the songs, whether
she wrote them or not,

the songs she recorded
and chose to record--

was 100 percent her.

I always felt she was authentic.

It was completely
coming from her.

♪ You just keep on pushing
my love over the borderline ♪

I was, like,
"I want to be this person,"

and I think a lot of
little girls wanted to be her

in a way that I don't think
girls necessarily wanted
to be Britney Spears

or even Katy Perry.

Madonna just always
seemed like...

she came up from the streets
and she turned into, like,

the biggest pop star
on the planet.

It's like the ultimate
rags-to-riches story.

Madonna's arrival
on the pop music scene

coincided with that
of another great musical icon,

one that would change the face
of entertainment forever.

Right place, right time.

Television wants movement,

and Madonna is the first
great female mover in videos.

They're not songs.
They're mini epics.

Because the videos are what
ends up people remembering.

Those are the things,
and they're playing
on MTV all the time.

She would appeal to everybody.

I remember going to parties when
I was eight or nine years old,

and every eight or
nine-year-old girl would
sing every Madonna song.

In hindsight you're like,
"Oh, my God. These songs
are so, like, sexual."

And if I was a parent,
I'd be freaking out,

but kids don't even know that,
'cause all they know is that
Madonna was pretty and cool

and danced well
and had good songs.

And ever courting controversy,

Madonna released
the provocatively titled
Like A Virgin in 1985.

The album launched her
into the music stratosphere.

♪ I made it through
the wilderness ♪

♪ Somehow I made it through

"Like A Virgin"
was a top number one
hit single for Madonna,

and in the video,
of course, we see her
in Venice in a gondola.

♪ Like a virgin, hey

♪ Touched for
the very first time ♪

Having her in
the "Like A Virgin" garb...

with all of those bangles
and bracelets and crucifixes

and frilly clothes,

would have looked pretty silly
over 90 or 105 minutes,

but for four minutes,
it's charismatic.

And all of those image changes
that she went through

were perfect
for four-minute films.

♪ I'll be yours
till the end of time ♪

♪ 'Cause you make me feel

It's a really ambivalent song.

Like, this relationship makes me
feel brand-new and fresh,

but Madonna in her,

I guess her ability to
manipulate and be controversial,

used the imagery in her favor.

Just the use of the word
"virgin" set people on edge.

♪ Like a virgin, hey

♪ Touched for
the very first time ♪

Obviously there was
a total uproar.

She knew what she was doing.
She was a provocateur.

And I think, in America,
if you can provoke, if you
can create headlines,

you can create controversy,
she knew that it would sell.

She was able to tap into these
themes, and she's always said

that she loved to play cat and
mouse with traditional gender
and cultural stereotypes.

And that's sort of what
really "Like A Virgin" is.

A queen of music and motion,

and every biker's
dream guest rider,

Madonna![audience cheering]

[Parker]
There was the MTV performance
that did it.

The best, coolest, craziest

VMA performance of all time

was when she performed
at the very first one,
opening the 1984 awards.

♪ I made it through
the wilderness ♪

♪ Somehow I made it through

[Parker]
That was the game changer.

That was when people were like,
"Oh, my God, who is this girl?

She is going to be
the biggest star on the planet."

♪ Like a virgin, hey

♪ Touched for
the very first time ♪

Her performance of that song
at the MTV Video Awards

is not just the definitive
moment for Madonna

but for MTV
and for pop culture as well.

♪ Oh, oh, oh

♪ Oh, oh, oh

[Parker]
When she rolled around
on the floor in her underwear--

That's kind of weird, the way
I'm talking about it now,

"Oh, she rolled around
on the floor in her underwear."

It sounds tame now
because pop stars have done
so much more since then.

Lady Gaga, who's obviously
one of her logical successors,

But back then it was shocking.

She just was fearless.
Like, she was letting it
all hang out literally.

I think at that point
people realized,

"Actually, no, this girl
is going to be around
for a long time."

[Weiss]
If she didn't have that
unerring belief in herself,

if she didn't have
that ability to know what
is a hit and what would work,

then I'm sure it would have
gone to somebody else.

If you look at pop history,
it's really--

it's not necessarily
who writes the best songs
but who gets the best songs

and who knows what to do
with them and market them.

That's one thing no one
had to teach Madonna.

She was a marketing genius
from square one.

Within weeks
of the release of the album,

the Madonna look was being
mirrored by teenage girls
all around the States.

Her lace lingerie,
large crucifix necklaces

and fingerless gloves

became the fashion statement
of the moment,

and Madonna had achieved one
of her most ambitious goals:

she had become a trendsetter.

1985 and 1986

proved incredibly
successful years for Madonna,

and the hits just kept coming
and coming and coming.

"Material Girl" is a song where
Madonna, even more so than ever,

really establishes control
of her identity and her persona.

♪ Some boys kiss me,
some boys hug me ♪

♪ I think they're okay

♪ If they don't give me
proper credit ♪

♪ I just walk away

If "Like A Virgin" was
kind of Madonna renouncing
her Catholic heritage,

then "Material Girl" was Madonna
kind of putting forth her credo

of what she values
and what's important in life.

Because you'd be hard pressed to
look at Madonna's personal life
and financial decisions

and not say that this
is a very greedy woman

who really enjoys
amassing tremendous wealth.

♪ We are living
in a material world ♪

♪ And I am a material girl

It was a subversive song
in just saying, like, you know,

it was the '80s where,
you know, the "Me" decade

where people--
you know, greed is good.

And it was still,
for one thing, a major hit,

but it gave a lot of people
a lot to talk about.

There was, you know, a lot
more weight to it than what were
typical pop stars at the time.

The video for "Material Girl"
is her-- It's ironic.

She is being wooed
by a Hollywood director

who's trying to buy her
with money and gifts,

and she doesn't want him,
so he impersonates
a poor person to get her.

♪ Material girl ♪ Material

♪ Living in a material world

♪ Living in
a material world ♪

[Madonna]
I never was
the Material Girl then.

It was meant to be ironic,

but no one ever seems to
understand my sense of irony,

except, possibly, the French.

You know, as life goes on,
you begin to understand
and appreciate

things that are not material.

Still, I have to live
in the physical world,

and so, um,

you know, when I said
I am the Material Girl

when I sang that song
in the early '80s,

it was very-- you know,
I considered it
tongue in cheek.

In 1985, she made
her first movie appearance

in a film called
Vision Quest.

Its soundtrack contained
her number one hit single

"Crazy For You."

♪ Swaying room
as the music starts ♪

"Crazy For You."
My friend lost her virginity
to "Crazy For You."

Not me. My friend.

♪ ...bodies become one

Madonna recorded
"Crazy For You" in 1985,

and it was for a film
that no one remembers
called Vision Quest,

and that was notable 'cause it
was her second big single

but also 'cause
it was her first ballad.

♪ What I'm dyin' to say
is that I'm crazy for you ♪

I don't think a lot of people,
especially who knew her
from the early hits

like "Holiday"
and "Lucky Star" thought
she'd ever go into ballads.

I mean, let's face it, she's not
Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey.

She's not known for having
great vocals, compared to
some of the other pop divas,

but it did open
the doors for her.

[Pearson]
I think it was a different
Madonna than we expected.

She wasn't this
kind of pop provocateur.

Rather she was singing
this heartfelt ballad where
this kind of unrequited love.

♪ Because I'm crazy for you

♪ Touch me once
and you'll know it's true ♪

♪ I never wanted-- There's something

about her vocals, I think, that
she was able to convey emotion.

You know, she is, you know--

She might be capable of being
one of the unemotional people
on the planet,

but I think when it comes time
to go into the vocal booth,

she knows how to kind of
get that kind of mixture of
yearning or regret or sentiment,

and she knows
how to wring it out.

♪ I'm crazy for you

♪ Crazy for you, baby

And, again, it just established
her as something more than
just a one-trick pony,

some who could be versatile and
have different types of music
and different types of looks

and was gonna have
a lasting career.

And then came
the low-budget motion picture
Desperately Seeking Susan,

a film theNew York Times
called one of the top ten
movies of the year.

Prince had just done
Purple Rain.
It was a massive hit.

Obviously the logical extension
is Madonna was the closest thing
to a female Prince,

let's make her a movie star.

[Parker] The Susan character
was clearly a Madonna character.

She actually doesn't have
that huge a part in the movie,

but when she is on the screen,
she lights it up.

She's just like so raw
and so earthy and so sexual

and just so real and,
like, you know, just a girl
that guys would lust after,

but like a girl
you might actually know
from around the way.

So different from her image now.

The Madonna we know now would
not be blow-drying her armpits

or, you know, putting
her feet up on the chair

while she eats popcorn with
her mouth open at the movie.

She was just, like,
not a very classy girl
but a very cool girl.

And I will tell you
that the idea of having
an iconic leather jacket

that you wear everywhere--

I spent years trying
to find the perfect
leather jacket for me,

and it completely came
from the the fact that--
it wasn't Fonzie.

It was the fact that Madonna
had this perfect jacket
in that movie.

For me, at least,
and for a lot of girls
who grew up with Madonna,

it was so much about her style,
and she just had the cool style.

Anything she wore,
I bought, or I would
go into my mom's closet

and then cut up with scissors
to make look like something
Madonna wore.

And in that movie, the defined
early iconic Madonna style,

the Wayfarer glasses,
the huge hair with the bow,

the cool jacket,
the layered, tattered clothes--

the idea that she just sort of,
like, took her entire suitcase

and it vomited on her, and here
she is in all these layers of
clothes and she looks amazing.

It definitely came from
that movie, and it definitely
established her as an icon,

I think a fashion icon as well
as just an all-around star.

[Weiss] It also produces
the song "Into the Groove."

Becomes another one
of her huge hits,

and it's kind of one
of her last New Wavey
kind of freestyle kind of songs,

but it's a catchy dance smash.

♪ Get into the groove

♪ Boy, you've got to prove
your love to me, yeah ♪

It did point, I guess,
to her disco background.

It's not a disco song per se,

but it's a song that,
you know, it's about dancing
that's a dance song.

So that always plays well,
and it really tied into
the movie itself.

♪ We might be lovers
if the rhythm's right ♪

Another Stephen Bray
collaboration.

It's just like
a perfect dance song.

If I hear that anywhere, I will
stop what I'm doing and dance
to it. I'm not exaggerating.

To me, it's up there
with some of the best
Michael Jackson songs

like "Rock With You" and
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get
Enough."

It's not deep;
it's a song about let's dance,

but sometimes all
you need is the perfect
Saturday night club song.

Never short of admirers,

Madonna had always had
a preference for sexy dark men.

In the past, she had dated
the likes of graffiti artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat.

But in 1985,

she really got
the gossip columnists going

when she hooked up with one
of the movie world's most
controversial young actors,

Sean Penn.

Amidst a blaze of publicity,

she married Penn
on August 16, 1985.

At the time, the couple
personified all that was cool
and cutting edge in Hollywood.

They'd become, in the nicest
possible sense of the word,

a freak show.

Their wedding was
covered by helicopter.

Now, usually people
are just worried about
wedding crashers.

You and me on the street,
we get married.

We don't want people to
come in that we don't know.

Wait a minute.
We don't look to the skies.

Madonna's career continued to
go from strength to strength,

and true to form,
she continued to shock

with her latest controversial
hit "Papa Don't Preach."

♪ Papa, I know you're
going to be upset ♪

♪ 'Cause I was always
your little girl ♪

"Papa Don't Preach"
was a message,

an open letter, really, I think,
from Madonna to her father.

You know, the whole thing
was about this young girl

who'd sort of gotten herself
in trouble sexually,
had gotten pregnant

and was having
this argument with her dad

about the fact that she didn't
want to give the baby up
or have an abortion.

She was going to keep her baby.

♪ Please, Papa don't preach
I'm in trouble deep ♪

♪ Papa don't preach
I been losin' sleep ♪

In 2012, you know, abortion
is still a hot-button topic.

Some people don't want
to touch it, so just imagine
what it was like in the mid-'80s

to have a song which
message was, you know,
I'm keeping my baby.

♪ I'm keepin' my baby

It got mixed reactions.

There were family groups
that praised the song, saying,

"Okay, you know,
Madonna is preaching
taking responsibility."

Not having an abortion or giving
up your baby for adoption,

but if you get pregnant,
doing the "right thing"

and marrying your boyfriend
and raising the baby.

Other people said, "No, this is
glamorizing teen pregnancy."

She couldn't win, you know?

♪ He says that he's
going to marry me ♪

It's really just
a Romeo and Juliet song,

but she's able to kind of
put it in an '80s context.

She wasn't writing a, you know,
Janis Joplin kind of song.

She's writing
these songs that appeal
to American teenage girls.

[Pearson]
Madonna dedicated
this song to the Pope,

which, as you can imagine,
caused all kinds of headlines
around the world.

Up until now she'd kind of
been less, perhaps not subtly,
but taking digs at them

with "Like A Virgin" and some
of her Catholic iconography,

but this was kind of an open,
all-out declaration of war.

[Parker]
In the video, she was very
toned. She had a different look.

She'd cut off her hair and it
was very short and blond and
she looked very sophisticated.

Sort of that boy toy look that
she had before was going away.

It was sort of the first time
we really saw Madonna

have one of her million
persona changes
and body changes.

[Pearson]
Madonna's wearing this
very provocative black bustier

and kind of bouncing around
quite a bit in this sexy outfit.

I was told that this
is when Guy Ritchie

actually started to develop
a bit of a crush on Madonna,

and he used to watch this video
again and again and again,

saying, you know,
"God, she's so hot."

So, ironically, he later
ended up marrying her,

but it was in that music video
that he first, I think,
started to really fancy her.

Her career continued
with the release in 1986

ofShanghai Surprise,

co-starring her husband
Sean Penn.

Penn's popularity in Hollywood
had suggested

that the movie would be
a huge success,

but the reality
was very different.

[Gambaccini]
Desperately Seeking Susan
was a hit.

It gave us the number one song,
"Into the Groove."

You would have thought,
"Wow, film career awaits."

Nope. Duds.

[Cohen]
Shanghai Surprise.

I would say that's Madonna's
first lead movie, and, um,

that generally was not
received very well.

You know, a lot of people
wanted to do whatever they
could to bring Madonna down.

The fact that Shanghai Surprise
was not a good movie at all

allowed people to kind of take
their shots at Madonna.

And then a New York Times
film critic, Vincent Canby...

wrote the nail
in the headpiece, which was,

"Madonna has already made
her great films,

and they are all
four minutes long."

The movie had raised
all kinds of differences,
both personal and artistic,

between Madonna and Sean,

and it was around this time
that news started to leak out

that the marriage
was in deep trouble.

[Gambaccini]
When she got together
with Sean Penn,

I didn't think it was forever,
because we'd already known

that she'd been
through a number of men
on her rise to the top.

[Pearson] Sean was incredibly
aggressive and violent
at that point in his life.

Madonna has actually admitted
or it's been reported that
he tied her up at one point,

you know, threatened her
with a baseball bat.

There had been all kinds
of unsubstantiated rumors
that he hit her,

that he was violent
in the relationship.

It was a very ugly
relationship at points,

and I think Madonna who,
you know, loves to provoke,

loves to probably fight
in her personal relationships,

was like a match to a flame
when it came to Sean Penn,

who had very much
an out of control temper.

The marriage between
Madonna and Sean

had lasted
just over two years.

Madonna later admitted
at that time,

"I was completely
obsessed with my career

and not ready to be generous
in any shape or form."

Her next big hit was
"Like a Prayer."

♪ Life is a mystery

♪ Everyone must stand alone

Once again, it incorporated
all the religious iconography

and references to
her Catholic religion.

♪ When you call my name
it's like a little prayer ♪

♪ I'm down on my knees
I wanna take you there ♪

And once again, it caused
controversy everywhere.

[Weiss]
This is an example of,
you know,

She had gone from being
"Like a Virgin" performing
at the MTV Awards

and shocking
and scaring America,

and America loved her for it,
this controversial kind of icon.

By 1989, Pepsi's giving her
commercial deals.

She's already starting to become
absorbed in the mainstream.

But "Like a Prayer" ends up
having this kind of
interracial video

and there was like burning
crosses in the south

and there was like ideas
of Ku Klux Klan.

♪ Just like a dream

♪ You are not what you seem

♪ Just like a prayer

♪ No choice, your voice
can take me there ♪

♪ Just like a prayer
I'll take you there ♪

Like I said,
she's a provocateur.

No matter what the taboo was,
she would've tried to break it
whether it was right or wrong.

♪ You're here with me
It's like a dream ♪

♪ Let the choir sing

♪ When you call my name
it's like a little prayer ♪

It was so shocking to a lot
of people that Pepsi
got shell-shocked

and wanted to cancel
the contract.

She never had anyone
feeling too comfortable.

And I think as her career
has progressed,

I think that's been the problem
of why she's had trouble
being this figure.

At a certain point,
you break every single taboo,

there's nothing left to shock.

♪ It's like a dream to me

[Weiss]
For the first 15 years
of her career,

there was nobody that could
bottle up that combination

of these different themes
of sex and lust and rebellion
and racial mixing

and all these different things
that were kind of like simmering
in America,

and she kind of
put them out in the light.

Obviously there was political
things going on beneath it,

but no one never
dealt with it in a pop form.

You couldn't ignore her.
She was able to make you never
be able to turn your head away

because if there was a car
crash, you'd kind of want
to see what happened.

A new man was about
to enter Madonna's life,

and this time he
arrived in the form

of one of Hollywood's
greatest lotharios,

Warren Beatty.

They met while filming
Dick Tracy,

a movie written and
directed by Beatty,

and their 20-year age gap
became the talk of Tinseltown.

[Cohen]
She actually did a good job,
in which, for the most part

was kind of a disaster
in a lot of ways.

It was sort of the beginning
of a very weird multimedia
time for Madonna

And then came
the groundbreaking video

for one of Madonna's most
memorable songs, "Vogue."

And with it came yet
another brand-new image.

♪ Look around

♪ Everywhere you turn
is heartache ♪

♪ It's everywhere that you go

♪ Look around

It was directed
by David Fincher,

who would later go on
to mastermind such
Hollywood blockbusters

who would later go on
t asFight Club uch
H andSocial Network. s

One of Madonna's greatest
skills as a pop star,

a mainstream pop star,

is taking underground trends

or things that are
soft of bubbling under

and turning them
into mainstream,

and "Vogue" was one of
the best examples of that.

♪ And here's what
it's for, so ♪

♪ Come on, Vogue

Voguing came out of the 1960's
Harlem ballroom dance scene,

mostly underground,
mostly gay community,

and she turned it into one of
the biggest pop songs
in 1989 or 1990,

and made doing this like a thing
that like your grandma would do,

even though she has
no idea where it comes from.

♪ Don't just stand there
Let's get to it ♪

♪ Strike a pose
There's nothing to it, Vogue ♪

Everyone knew it was eight years
after the fact that Vogue
had its popularity,

but I don't think the average
person in middle America

knew what Voguing was
until Madonna did it.

It was a perfect example
of her--

with her ear picking up
a frequency that most
people weren't hearing

and making it her own.

[Parker] And it was also
another continuation
in terms of the video

of her more glamorous,
more classy look,

the sort of Marilyn Monroe-thing
she started to do,

getting away more and more from
the kind of crassly, slutty look

that she had established
with her early albums.

[Cohen]
They had a very strong
black and white video,

very highly stylized

and one of the best meetings
of message and music

in Madonna's career.

♪ Get up on the dance floor

♪ Vogue

Not only does she tie it in
with these themes
of gay liberation,

which are all
kind of sublimated,

she's name-dropping
Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire,

all these American icons.

♪ Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean
on the cover of a magazine ♪

♪ Grace Kelly, Harlow, Jean

She's bringing all these
different ideas together

with kind of a subversive idea
beneath it,

and then, you know,
she's got a catchy video.

And the truth of the matter is,
you know, whether or not
you know what Voguing is,

it comes down to the fact
that everyone remembers Madonna
for being the person who Vogued

because it's not necessarily
who does it first.

It's always kind of
who does it best.

♪ Let your body
move to the music ♪

I saw her, what may have
been her live peak,

which was the Vogue tour,

and she was just so hot

that the heat of her career
was in itself sexy,

which she had a sense
for packaging each song

in a production number...

that was perfect
for the song itself.

And then they'd move
to a different point
of the stage

and they'd do
something else,

and you couldn't
take your eyes off her.

Madonna will always have
the sexiest dancers,

the newest fashions,

and she'll
take credit for them.

Not because
she's being arrogant,

but because everybody will
give her credit for it

'cause they don't know
who that second beautiful
dancer from the left is.

They'll just say
it's a Madonna show.

1991 was another epic year
for Madonna.

By now she had achieved
a staggering 32 top ten
hits in the U.S.

and sold more than 17 million
albums internationally,

generating an incredible
$1.2 billion in sales.

That same year she also
founded her own label,

Maverick Records,
with Time-Warner,

and brought out
a greatest hits album called

The Immaculate Collection.

A documentary about her
Blonde Ambition tour

also got the critics
talking once again.

In America, it was called
Truth or Dare.

In the rest of the world,
it had the provocative title
In Bed with Madonna

I just think life is unfair.
Here I am, this person.

Everybody thinks I have
everything I want, right?

But I want you,
and I can't have you.

It was the Truth or Daremovie
where it was one of
the first times

where she went
to her mother's grave
since she was a little girl.

And if you really want to mark
Madonna's career up in the paths
or into spheres,

1991 is kind of where
she makes the sharp break.

She released The Immaculate
Collectionthat year,

and I think you could probably
make a case of that was when
she finally had gotten

maybe the first bit of degree of
peace with her mother's passing.

[Madonna narrating]
I never really understood
why she was taken away from us.

It just seemed so unfair.

I never thought that she
had done something wrong,

so oftentimes I'd wonder
what I'd done wrong.

[Weiss]
She never wants to leave.

She never wants to live any of
her life with the cameras off.

If it was ideal, she'd have
the cameras on at all times.

And they talk about
her early shows,

where she was one of
the first ones to realize
that she was like--

She would let the audience
be the peeping tom.

The documentary film
also highlighted Madonna's

free-thinking attitude
toward sexual stereotypes,

revealing her
bisexual relationship
with another woman.

I don't like her.I don't either.
Believe me, it's sickening.

I don't like any of the people
I sleep with either.

That's why I sleep with them
'cause they're hideous.

[laughing]

It's very interesting
that Madonna...

didn't get
more of a reputation
for being bisexual.

She famously hung out
with Sandra Bernhard
as a gal pal.

But that's because she went
through so many people

that inevitably
a couple of them
were gonna be women.

As if the documentary
hadn't been provocative enough,

a year later,

Madonna really went for gold
in pushing the boundaries

when she published a highly
controversial soft-core
pornographic coffee book

featuring her in various
blatant erotic poses.

The book calledSex
sold 150,000 copies

on its release day
in the USA alone.

Three days later,
all 1.5 million copies
of the first edition

were sold out worldwide,

making it the most successful
coffee table book of all time.

[Parker] The one thing
I would say that she
ever did controversial

that, like, hurt her career
what I'd say would be
the Sexbook,

which was just stupid
and ridiculous.

I will come out there
and say it.

[Gambaccini]
Nobody would've said,

"Hey, let's make
a $150 coffee table book
of explicit photos."

I mean, nobody said that
to any pop star ever.

Can you imagine
anybody saying that
to Barbra Streisand?

To me, I was like,
"What are you doing?"

Like it's one thing to be
sexual in your videos,

to be sexual
in your song lyrics,

but when you're actually
doing a soft-core porn book

where you're posing naked,
with Vanilla Ice,

with Vanilla Ice
and Big Daddy Kane
and Naomi Campbell...

I'm proud to buy it.
I'm not ashamed.

Once again, you have to realize
this was 1991, let's say.

People were more
easily shocked then
than they were now.

[Gambaccini]
She had a sense of how
far she could take it

'cause this could've
potentially been
a career ender.

And then she knew
intuitively when to cut it,

and she let the book
go out of print.

[Parker]
It came out, coincided with

what I think is one of her
weaker albums Erotica,

which, again, was just so
hammering you over the head
with the sex thing.

There was just something
about it that I thought
seemed very desperate

and very, um--
yeah, just trying
too hard and silly

and just trying to shock like,
"Ooh, look how shocking I am."

By now even some of her most
ardent fans believed Madonna

had gone one step too far
with her overtly sexual image.

And for about five years,
she went under
the publicity radar.

But then in 1996 came
the momentous news

that she had given birth
to a baby girl called Lourdes,

whom she had with her lover and
personal trainer Carlos Leon.

[Pearson]
Madonna had said numerous times
she wanted to have a baby

with a Latin man,
a Puerto Rican particularly

'cause she thought they would
make beautiful babies together.

As if the birth of her daughter
weren't headlining enough,

news also broke in 1996
that Madonna had landed

one of the most coveted
roles in show business,

that of Eva Peron

in the movie version of
the smash hit musicalEvita.

She said at the time,

"I am prouder ofEvita
than anything else
I have ever done."

[Parker] Madonna's not
gonna go down in history
as being a great actress.

But occasionally she gets
married to the right part,

and the reason why
Desperately Seeking Susan
worked well for her

is because she was basically
playing a variation of herself,

and some people could say
with Evitashe sort of was, too,

this very ambitious woman
who came from nothing,

who is determined to make
something of herself.

Some would say
Madonna has used men

or used her feminine wiles
to get ahead.

[Gambaccini]
Evitawas the great
musical hit on stage,

but of the late 70s.

And for some reason,
the film didn't get made,

even though an entire
generation of star females

were mentioned for the part
and seriously considered.

[Weiss]
In the film,
she plays Evita Peron,

the wife of Juan Peron,
leader of Argentina.

And this is a role that
she'd always kind of wanted,

and obviously she found,
I'm sure, tons of
emotional connection

with a woman that kind of got
everything that she wanted.

[Madonna]
I was extremely
passionate about it.

I knew that it was
a chance for me

as an actress and a singer

to do things I'd
never done before,

and to push myself
and to grow.

♪ It won't be easy

♪ You'll think it strange

Doing "Don't Cry For Me,
Argentina"

from the balcony
of the Casa Rosada,

she was charismatic.

♪ Don't cry for me, Argentina

♪ The truth is
I never left you ♪

[Weiss]
That was her first big
film success,

kind of her only major,
major film success,

but I think it proved that she
was able to have that kind of--

She was able to have
that versatility.

She was able to kind of get
in the mind of a very,
very powerful woman

who would stop at nothing
to succeed, so--

Obviously a huge stretch.

[Madonna]
It's an incredible role
for any actress to play,

and I felt that I could
completely understand
her compassion

and her ambition and other
things that she experienced.

♪ I love you
and hope you love me ♪

I just feel that
what's happening to me

is a perfect example that
if you just keep on going

and you put your mind
to something, you can
achieve anything.

♪ Look at me to know

♪ That every word is true

Not long after Lourdes' birth,
Madonna joined Kabbalah,

a religion reflecting the more
esoteric aspects of Judaism.

Her Kabbalah name is Esther.

and to this day,
she remains a firm believer.

In 1998, she released
an album calledRay of Light,

which proved a real
departure for her.

♪ Zephyr in the sky at night
I wonder ♪

Once again, it proved a whole
new chameleon-like reinvention
of her image.

That was a real change of pace

because it wasn't
so much a pop album

as it was an attempt
to kind of negotiate

with the electronic music
that was going on at the time.

For most people
in the music industry,
electronica,

that catch always sees
the next big thing.

♪ And I feel

The structure is
like a dance record.

And she's somebody who really--
as even dance music continues
to thrive in 2012--

it's probably the biggest
it's ever been,

Madonna was the first one.

♪ Quicker than a ray of light

She was the one that
kind of was able to do it

in a way with more
style than anybody had
and more visual flair.

She was the first one to get
that it wasn't enough to
just be a good singer,

not to have good songs.
You had to be an icon.

If you wanted to survive,
you had to, you know,

become not just a conversation
at the dinner table.

You had to be like
the conversation
at the dinner table.

♪ Quicker than a ray of light

♪ I'm flying

She won four Grammys
forRay of Light,

including Best Video.

Amazingly, it was the first time
in Madonna's long career

that the Grammys
had recognized her.

I've been in the
music business 16 years.

This is my first Grammy,
and, uh--

Well, actually, I've
won four tonight, but...

you know, it's worth the wait
and all that.

The video was directed
by Swedish director
Jonas Akerlund,

and it also won
the MTV Video of the Year.

They want to know if I was
difficult to work with.

No. It was great.

That same year, Madonna's
constant reinvention continued

when she married British
film director Guy Ritchie.

She moved from
Los Angeles to London

and later gave birth
to their son Rocco John.

I'm looking for a place
to live in London,

but only because
I go there so much,
I work there so much.

I can't stand
staying in hotels.

You know, so it would be
kind of like a second home.

It wouldn't be
my primary home.

For a while, she seemed
content with London life,

even writing a children's book
calledThe English Roses.

Bizarrely,
this onetime sex siren

now started to promote
an image of a more
wholesome English mother,

even adopting something
of a British accent
along the way.

[Reporter]
How much do you
enjoy being married?

Love it. Best thing
I've ever done.Thank you.

[Pearson]
She reinvented herself
as this English rose,

writing a children's book,
talking about baking bread
and staying at home,

wearing these, like,
day dresses.

It's absolutely ludicrous.

The problem with
the English roses

was that they were all
a little bit jealous

of a little girl
in the neighborhood.

I tried out all the stories
on my children,

and whenever they got bored
and started fidgeting or,

you know, complaining or
looking for other things to do,

I knew I had to fix
that part of the story.

[Pearson] It's like Madonna
thinks that the rest of us
have such short memories

that nobody remembers
the whole S&M stuff from before

and were happily
ready to accept her as this,
you know, English rose.

Now, of course
what we see more recently
is another reinvention,

kind of something
in the middle.

She still wants to be sexy.

She wants to prove that
she can be 53 and she
can rock a body suit,

but at the same time,
she's not quite as seedy
and naked as she used to be.

I think Kabbalah has played
a large role in some of the
images we've seen of Madonna.

As she's kind of dabbled--
at one time very, very deeply
involved in the religion,

I think lately a bit less so--

we've seen the kind of
influences of having
a spiritual life

and how that has affected her
in terms of her public image.

She went on to write several
more children's books,

includingYacov and
the Seven Thieves.

So my throat is a bit sore,

and I'm supposed to actually
not be talking to very much

'cause I have a concert
tomorrow,

so Lola has volunteered
to read the story to you.

Once upon a time, the rose...

In 2003 came Madonna's
ninth studio album

American Life.

With only 4 million in sales,

it was the lowest-selling
album of her career.

And a few less successful
singles emerged later.

She had a couple of huge flops.

American Lifewas first and
foremost the biggest flop
of them all.

That's the song
where she tries to rap.

And it went about as well
as you might imagine.

♪ I'm drinkin' a soy latte
I get a double shotte ♪

♪ It goes right through my body
And you know I'm satisfied ♪

Madonna's 10th album
Confessions on a Dance Floor

was released in 2005.

[Parker]
Confessions on a Dance Floor
from 2005

was probably, in my opinion,
the last great Madonna record.

We'll see how the new one is,
but that was, I think,
her last real great record.

And in a way,
it was a full-circle achievement
.

American Lifehad been
kind of a misstep of her
trying to be all political,

and she got back to, actually,
what she did in the beginning,

her dance roots,
her Danceteria roots.

♪ Every little thing
that you say or do ♪

♪ I'm hung up

♪ I'm hung up on you

Her last great single
was "Hung Up",

which sampled "Gimme! "Gimme!
"Gimme! [A Man After Midnight]"
by ABBA.

Brilliantly sampled that.

At that point, she had kind of
gotten a reputation as being
very self-serious.

And Confessions on
a Dance Floortried--

It was designed to be
similar to a DJ mix.

And "Hung Up" was one of her
biggest hits in a long time.

♪ I can't keep on wait...

♪ But it'll be too late

♪ Every little thing
that you say or do ♪

It was a number one song in,
I believe, in forty-plus
countries,

which made it the most
widespread number one single
in pop history.

In 2006, Madonna hit
the headlines once again

when she funded an orphanage
in Malawi, East Africa,

and went on to adopt
a boy from the country.

His name was David Banda.

2008 proved another momentous
year for the goddess of pop,

not all of it good.

Things were not going well
in the Ritchie household.

[Pearson]
Madonna and Guy fought a lot.

They had a very difficult
relationship,

and I've actually
been around them
when they were fighting,

and what was interesting was
the way that they fought

was very much the way
like 14-year-old boys
would fight,

like, "No, you're stupid."
"No, you're stupid."

It was the most adolescent
dynamic I have ever seen
in a relationship in my life.

I think what drew Madonna
to Guy was like a lot
of strong women.

She was looking for someone
who was her equal,

who matched her,
who wasn't intimidated by her.

And I think Guy's very English
upbringing allowed him
to be very reserved

and certainly not to show
visibly that he thought
she was cool or impressive.

Madonna was really drawn
to that.

I think Guy mirrored
at lot of her own father's
demeanor and behavior

in the sense that
he was cold, he was remote,
he didn't give praise easily.

Madonna was very attracted
to that, but later, of course,

I think she felt
very hurt by the fact
that he wasn't more supportive

or more complimentary
of her efforts.

That same year, Madonna
had to face the release of
aNew York Times' bestseller

written by her brother
and once-close confidant
Christopher Ciccone

calledLiving with Madonna.

It revealed some
unsavory stories about her.

But despite all this,
Christopher remained adamant

that he held no ill will
towards his sister.

There's no venom in this book.
None whatsoever.

I have to face myself
every day

when I wake up and
look myself in the mirror,

and I do that with--

I can do that with honor
and respect held intact.

It became clear from the book
and to subsequent interviews

that there was no love lost

between Christopher and
Madonna's husband Guy Ritchie.

I don't dislike Guy Ritchie.
He disappoints me
as a human being,

but I don't dislike him,
you know.

It's my sister's husband,

and I have no intention
of getting in between that.

As far as him being
a wedge between us,

his insecurities led him to
behave a certain way with me.

We were very close, her and I,

and that was not
an easy thing for him.

Is he homophobic? Probably.

But I think the combination
of what I was to my sister

connected with the way
that I have sex

is, was difficult
for him to deal with.

And, you know, it was,
as Rupert Everett said,

sort of, you know,
me or him.

Not long after
the book's release,

Madonna announced that she and
Guy were officially divorcing

after eight years of marriage.

Throughout the pain
of Madonna's divorce,

Lourdes, or "Lola"
as she's now known,

became even closer
to her mother.

Madonna was always
a very active mother
and a very strong mother,

but then I think as she
went through her divorce
from Guy Ritchie,

she began to depend more
and more on her then, I think,
12 or 13-year-old daughter.

Their relationship now
definitely resembles more
two girlfriends

than it does
mother and daughter,

If you look at Lola's life,
she's growing up so fast.

She has a clothing range,
a clothing line.

She had a cameo in
her mother's movie W.E.

She's been in Madonna's
music video.

She's at
a performing arts school.

She clearly wants
to be a performer,

and it looks like Madonna's
almost morphing from
this performer herself

into probably
the stage mother from hell.

But she's getting to kind of
vicariously, I think, relive
some things through Lourdes.

As she approached
her 50th birthday,

Madonna found herself
in Malawi's high court,

defending claims that she had
flaunted the adoption laws in
the country over David Banda.

I went to Malawi in Africa

thinking that I was going
to save children's lives

and make a big difference
in their lives,

and I was going to affect
change in their lives.

And hopefully I have,
but the surprise to me

was how much they changed me.

This adoption
essentially created--

It was the beginning of
the creation of adoption
laws in Malawi.

Up until this time,
there wasn't an adoption law.

So consequently I was
sort of the template

or the role model, so to speak,
for future adoptions.

But she won the case and
later went on to adopt
another Malawi child,

Mercy James.

It was a tough time for me--
I won't lie--

because the whole adoption
period, you know,

going through the bureaucracy
of it and everything
was exhausting,

and then, you know,
to have to go there

and see the palpable
suffering of the children

and to feel like you were
doing something good,

and then to come home
to everyone screaming
and outraged

and accusing you
of kidnapping.

You know, it hurt,
I have to say.

But you know,
time has gone by,

and I can look back at it
and say, "Well, you know,
people didn't understand,

and often people
jump to conclusions,
and they're not educated,

and they don't know
what's going on."

And I knew eventually
that people would
understand the story

and you know, obviously
I had to go through that
as well.

It all worked out okay
in the end.

[Reporter]
How does it feel to back
in Malawi, Madonna?

Amazing!

That same year, Madonna
released a third greatest hits
albumCelebration,

which became her 11th
number one album in the U.K.

She now tied with Elvis Presley

as the solo act with
most number one albums
in the country.

In 2011, Madonna stepped back
into the movie business,

this time as a co-writer
director onW.E.

It told the story of American
divorcee Wallis Simpson,

who brought the British
monarchy to its knees

when she won the heart
of King Edward VIII,

and he was forced to abdicate.

The movie received
mixed reviews.

[Pearson]
Basically all the reviews
have been universally bad,

apart from the fact that
they've said, in terms of
the artistic direction,

basically like she was
making a music video,
it looks good,

but everything else--
the script,
how the movie flows--

there's a lot anachronistic
stuff where stuff from
out of time, you know,

they've got Wallis Simpson
dancing to some punk song
from The Cure,

stuff like that that
Madonna thought was very edgy

has been universally
reviled by critics.

Today, despite
her increasing years,

Madonna's live performances
are legendary.

As a live performer,
she is fantastic.

I had the privilege of going to
a very small concert she held.

I was in a VIP area standing
next to Guy Ritchie, and we
were very close to the stage.

At the time, she was fantastic.

A lot of energy.
She really commands the room.

In fact, she reminded me of
Oprah Winfrey in a strange way

because I've been in a situation
with Oprah as well,

and she just has to stand there
and say anything banal,

and the whole audience
is riveted.

Madonna has that same
commanding presence.

They remind me of each other.

And she just had the audience
in the palm of her hand

from the minute
she came on the stage.

Her most recent
live performance was at
the Super Bowl in 2012,

where she wowed an audience
of over 114 million viewers

with her highly energetic
and ever raunchy routine.

♪ Look around

♪ Everywhere you turn
is heartache ♪

♪ It's everywhere
that you go ♪

I thought Madonna's performance
at the Super Bowl was
a great spectacle.

It's a great show, which is
what Madonna is famous for.

If you looked at the way
the stage was lit
and all kinds of--

You know, amazing graphics
and visuals and dancers
and choreography.

It was very well done.

[Gambaccini]
There was, for example,
this man on a tightrope.

There's a particular name
for what he did,

and he's the first person to get
national television doing that

because she was clever enough
to spot, "Hmm. This is new.

Get him to do
this tightrope thing,
dance on a tightrope."

♪ Dance with me, baby

[Gambaccini]
She knew that M.I.A. was
of a different ethnicity,

so that would
expand the audience,
as Nicki Minaj did.

And she knew she was
controversial

because that's how
they became famous
in the United States

was through controversy.

♪♪ [fast rapping]

[Weiss]
She had Nicki Minaj,
she had M.I.A. there.

Those were her handpicked
kind of children.

You know, it was kind of
a slap in the face.

I think Lady Gaga and I'm sure
Katy Perry would've killed
to have had that,

but it's interesting that
Madonna picked Nicki Minaj
and M.I.A.,

and I think if you really
want to study her career,
that's not surprising at all

because she identified all
the stuff that she was taking

was from African-American,
you know, Caribbean culture.

She was taking all of
these different things.

You have somebody like
M.I.A. who's originally
from Sri Lanka,

and her dad was Tamil Tiger.

She's a rebel, and she's
flipping off the camera,
whether that was planned or not.

You have Nicki Minaj,
who's from Queens.

She's a rapper, she's a girl,
and she's still stealing
everything from--

I mean, everyone steals
everything from Madonna.

If you saw Nicki Minaj's
recent Grammy performance,

you know, she going against
the Catholic Church.

The funny thing about it
was everyone, you know,

there was a priest there,
and she was playing all these
different things,

and she's going wild,
and she's doing these
sexual things,

and you're supposed to be like,
"Oh, my God. That's so awful."

But it's not awful because,
like, everyone saw that
20 years ago.

♪♪ [rapping]

[Pearson]
When M.I.A., you know,
gave the middle finger,

it really irritated Madonna.

She said she felt
it was unnecessary.

The energy had been
so positive.

But let's be honest.
That's not the reason.

The reason it irritated Madonna
is that people were talking

about that obscene gesture
the next day instead of
Madonna's performance.

If anybody's gonna shock,
if anybody's gonna provoke,

it has to be her.

If you looked at her alone,

uh, the voice,
some of the dance moves,

the fact that she was actually
holding cheerleading pompoms
at one point

was a little bit silly.

♪ Gimme all your lovin'

♪ Gimme your love

♪ Gimme all your love today

I think there is a fine line
between being an older woman

and being a fantastically
sexy performer and
looking ridiculous.

And I think at points
she carried it off

when she came in
as the gladiator,

then at other points
when she was a cheerleader,
it did look a little bit silly.

Nonetheless it put her
single into the top ten
for the first week.

Incredibly,
her latest albumMDNA

reached number one
in 43 countries

through iTunes preorder
before it was even released.

First of all, the title
MDNA is amazing.

It's a very clever title,
and it also gives a nod
to rave culture

and shows that she's again
going in the dancey direction.

And "Gimme All Your Luvin"
is the new single.

It has M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj.

♪ I see you comin' and I don't
wanna know your name ♪

♪ L-U-V Madonna

Madonna's very good about
surrounding herself

with people that are young
and cool and will get her
attention.

She's done duets with
Justin Timberlake,
Britney Spears,

people like that.

[Cohen]
It was a way for her to just
kind of re-establish, like,

"Hey, um, I'm still
the queen of all this stuff."

Ever contentious,
Madonna's love life
continues to fascinate

an ever-greedy
and voracious media.

Most recently, she's been
linked with much younger men

like 26-year-old
Brazilian model Jesus Luz

and 25-year-old Brahim Zaibat.

You name a big male star
of the late 20th century,

and Madonna probably had
some affiliation with him
in some way.

And if not, he wanted it,
you know, because she
took men like trophies.

Despite being the most famous
woman in the world,

Madonna still manages to lead
a fairly private personal life.

So what is she really like?

[Pearson]
When you meet Madonna,
the first thing that strikes you

and kind of shocks you
is how little she is.

She has this larger-than-life
persona and this huge
iconic reputation,

and so when you see
this woman who's barely 5'4",
this tiny little figure,

you find it hard to believe
that so much power came out
of such a small being.

Madonna is not particularly
warm or friendly.

There's kind of a frostiness
about her,

and you have to work for it,
you know, to get her approval.

She notoriously hard
on people.

She expects her staff to be
available to her at all hours,
day or night,

for whatever she needs
or desires.

Additionally she expects them
to be in good shape.

She expects everyone to
take care of themselves
or else.

But at the same time,
I don't think her standards

are any less on herself
than they are on other people.

She's a classic perfectionist,
and she demands that kind of
stuff from everyone around her.

[Weiss]
Another thing about Madonna
was like never into drugs.

She never really drank.
She would drink ginger ale.

And I think people
thought she was weird.

And I think it probably strikes
back to the fact that she never
wanted to be out of control.

She never wanted
to feel weak or imperiled.

And when you drink or you smoke,
it's to lose yourself,

and I think the story of Madonna
is somebody who loves herself.

[Pearson]
I know someone who had a meeting
with Madonna not too long ago,

and she arrived in her pajamas.
She just doesn't care.

Another thing about Madonna is
a lot of people don't realize

all her friends and family,
they never call her Madonna.

It's always "M,"
so it'll be like,

"Well, where's M?
What time is M getting home?

Are you at M's house?"

It's kind of her
personal nickname.

Madonna actually doesn't really
like the "Maj" nickname.

That came from
the British tabloids:
Her Majesty.

I've been told
she actually hates it.

I'm quite positive that although
she's called that frequently
in the press,

nobody would dare
to call her that to her face.

[Parker] People have been
wondering what the future
holds for Madonna forever.

I remember when she turned 30,
people were like, "How long
can she keep doing this?"

When she turned 40, it was like,
"Come on, you're already 40.

Can she still keep doing this?"

Now 50's behind her.
She's 53 years old,

and she's about to
release another album,

and she already has a song
that's a top 40 song,

and she's collaborating
with Nicki Minaj.

What does the future hold
for Madonna? I don't think
she's ever gonna stop.

At the end of the day,
I love fancy clothes
and sparkling diamonds

and parties
and dressing up

and, you know,
all of those things,

but I don't need them to be
happy, and I never did.

[Pearson]
She will never stop
trying to be the best.

She will never stop
trying to stay on top.

Her ambition apparently
knows no bounds.

I don't see Madonna ever
stopping until nobody wants
to go see her anymore.

You know, her tickets,
very controversial
for her new tour,

is something like $300.
And when she was asked,

"How do you justify,
in this economy, asking
these kind of prices?"

And she said simply,
"I'm worth it."

And I think as long as she
has that kind of confidence,

that kind of self-belief,

and that kind of, you know,
incredible ability
to captivate a room,

she's gonna keep going.