Life with My Sister Madonna

by Christopher Ciccone

  She strides over to the canvas, takes one look at my painting, and flips out.

  “How dare you finish my painting! How could you do this to me? What have you done? What have you done? I wanted to do all the painting, but you’ve gone and done it again. You must be lashing out at Madonna.”

  What the hell is she talking about?

  “You’re crazy,” I tell her. “Paint over it. I don’t care. And don’t call me again until you’ve come to your senses. Madonna has nothing to do with this.”

  Besides, I’ve only done what Lauren asked—I’ve painted a copy of the drawing onto the canvas.

  Then I walk out in amazement.

  Five days later, she calls me at my studio and apologizes for blowing up like that, but says that she still thinks I’m lashing out at Madonna. I ask her what she did with the painting. She says, “I took it up to the roof and burned it.” I say, “You’re nuts,” and hang up the phone.

  A few weeks later, Danny and I are strolling around the Village, and on a rack I see a postcard featuring the identical drawing Lauren showed me. I pull it out of the rack and flip it over. On the back, a credit: Picasso, from his blue period. I should have known. I resolve to study Picasso’s work more closely. And although Lauren contacts me later and suggests lunch, I never see her again.

  DOWN THE LINE, my study of Picasso will pay off. Two years later, Madonna tells me she wants to start collecting art and will I help her? I find out that a Léger is about to go on the market, get a transparency of it, and show it to my friend Darlene Lutz, an art history major who used to work with Maripol. I tell her I know nothing about the artist or the painting, but think it is great and ask her to research it.

  She does, and I take the transparency and the information to Madonna, tell her the painting is amazing, perfect for the apartment, and that I think she should have it. She listens, and with her approval I bid $1 million on her behalf and win the painting for her.

  Soon after, she expresses interest in Tamara de Lempicka because she’s read a book about her and is fascinated by her. I tell her that Lempicka fits exactly into the apartment’s deco style, and Madonna starts collecting her work. From then on, my role in Madonna’s life expands further; along with Darlene Lutz, her official art adviser, I am now her unofficial one. I regularly browse through all the catalogs, visit all the galleries, and, with Darlene, generally bid at auctions on her behalf.

  After the Lempicka, Madonna buys Frida Kahlo’s My Birth, and my favorite of all her collection, Dalí’s Veiled Heart.

  Picasso’s Buste de femme à la frange, depicting Dora Maar, comes on the market. I tell Madonna, and she authorizes Darlene and me to attend the auction and bid on it.

  The painting is beautiful. Darlene and I sit in Sotheby’s auction room, knowing that Madonna doesn’t want us to bid more than $5 million. I am desperate to win the bidding for her. It opens at $2 million. I bid three. I am outbid by a million. Then I bid again, and there is silence. The auctioneer announces, “Sold to the gentleman with paddle number 329.” Everyone in the room applauds. The painting is mine. Or rather, Madonna’s. The moment is so exhilarating, so surreal. I sign the contract with Sotheby’s, walk out as if I am floating on a cloud.

  I call Madonna. “You’ve got it, babe, you’ve got it. It’s fucking beautiful.”

  She cries, “Yippee.” Then a second later, gives a big sigh.

  I know exactly what she’s thinking. “It’s worth it, Madonna. You’ve got a really great Picasso.”

  Madonna decides that the Picasso should be hung over her rosewood desk. I supervise the crew of guys hired to hang it. A few days later, she comes back into town and sees the painting for the first time.

  “I think it’s beautiful, and I love it,” she says. “And I don’t feel bad about spending the money, because you were right, it is worth every cent.”

  Over the years, with Darlene, I will spend around $20 million of Madonna’s money on art for her—which collectively, by 2008, has no doubt increased in value by over $100 million.

  MADONNA NEVER VISITS me in my art studio until one evening when, a few months after I first move in, she arrives there with JFK Jr. Clearly her ploy of making him jealous during his visit to her dressing room has worked. I’m not surprised. She hasn’t told me that they are romantically involved. But by bringing him to the studio, she clearly wants to let me know that she and John are an item. I also get the feeling she wants to impress me, and she does. I am more than impressed. I am knocked out. I can hardly believe that I have a Kennedy in my studio. John is handsome and polite, but it’s clear that their relationship is casual, light and fun.

  Later, Madonna calls me and says, “I feel like I am repeating Marilyn and the president.”

  I can’t believe she’s serious. I tell her, “Go ahead and enjoy yourself. You aren’t Marilyn, and he’s not the president.”

  After she hangs up, I ponder whether she is using John’s luster to enhance her own mythology. Then I remember that although John, bowing to his mother’s wishes, is assistant DA here in Manhattan, he is also an aspiring actor and is set to make his professional acting debut a few months later in Winners at Manhattan’s Irish Arts Center. He may well feel that dating Madonna is more appropriate to his theatrical aspirations.

  In the end, they date briefly, hang out for a while, work out at the gym and go jogging in Central Park together, then part. However, they remain friends, and when John founds a new magazine, George, Madonna even agrees to pose for the cover.

  SIX

  This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  BY NOW, DANNY and I have settled into an annual holiday routine. His family know he is gay and accept me completely. The highlight of our relationship comes every Christmas when, on Christmas Eve, we drive in my old used green Range Rover—along with two of his brothers who live in Manhattan—to his parents’ place in Queens, where we will spend the night. His parents always decorate the house in true American Christmas style—too much of everything. But I love being there and would never dream of commenting on it. I am far too content, as I feel that I am now part of the family.

  Each year, I bring Grandma Elsie’s meat pie, which I’ve made and everyone loves. Then on Christmas morning, I fly to Michigan and spend Christmas with my family. Even though Danny’s family are New Yorkers and my family are Midwesterners, there is very little difference between them, other than that Danny’s family are comfortable with his sexuality, and my family—with the exception of Marty, Melanie, and Madonna—are totally in the dark about mine.

  On the afternoon of Christmas Day 1987, my father decides to confront the issue at last. He asks me to come out to the garage and help him change the oil on his old Ford F-150. Not an odd request, as I am a Detroit boy, born and bred.

  We are alone.

  As I slide under the truck to empty the oil, my father goes quiet, then asks, “Are you a homosexual?”

  I drop the wrench and knock my head on the front bumper as I sit up. “What?”

  An extremely pregnant pause.

  “You don’t have a girlfriend. You don’t ever talk about girls…and I’d like to know if you’re, well, gay?”

  I consider my options. I am twenty-seven years old and am in a committed and loving relationship with a man. Why be afraid to admit the truth?

  The image of Marty floats before my eyes, taunting me. I grit my teeth and erase it.

  “Yes,” I say, “yes, I am.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for my father, a church deacon and a conservative Catholic, to explode in rage and disappointment.

  Instead, to my vast relief, he starts laughing. “I should have guessed a long time ago, but it only crossed my mind lately.”

  I am immensely surprised by his benign reaction, surprised, and I feel a bit strange. But glad I won’t have to keep my
sexuality a secret anymore.

  We go back to working on the car together.

  I assume we will now live happily ever after. My father, me, and his knowledge of my homosexuality.

  I return to New York. A month passes. Then a letter arrives from my father, in which he says, “Christopher, after our discussion, I’ve thought about this for quite a while. And I don’t think you are well. So I think you should see a psychiatrist to help you with this problem. And I’d be happy to pay for it.”

  I am appalled. I had been fully prepared for my father to react this way when I first told him that I’m gay, but not now, not a month later. The first time around, he played the tolerant liberal, but now his true feelings have come out and I am deeply disappointed. For while I understand his position on homosexuality, what really hurts me is that he is suggesting that I am mentally ill and, thereby, Danny as well. And by doing so, he is relegating my love for Danny to being merely a symptom of our dual sicknesses.

  I write back, “Dear Dad, fuck you. I am not mentally ill and I will not ‘seek help’ to cure something that doesn’t exist. I am the most stable of all your children. The only one who has been in a relationship for more than two years. You’ve never seen me naked in Playboy and I haven’t fathered any children out of wedlock. If you’d like to vent your morality, I suggest you look to your other children.

  “Until you come to terms with my life and choices, don’t bother calling or writing. Good-bye. Our relationship is over.”

  A part of me understands my father’s position, but I don’t accept it. It hurts me, particularly because Danny is being dismissed as an illness. So I choose him over my father.

  My father and I don’t speak for a year. I am surprised and touched when Joan calls a few times and tells me she knows what is going on with me and Dad, that she supports me, but I need to understand his point. The Catholic view, etc. I listen but am not convinced.

  A year later, out of the blue and to my great surprise, my father calls me and says, “I don’t want this to come between us. I want you in our lives. I can accept you for what you are and I love you.”

  I am incredibly moved by this and pleased that my father has come to accept me. And I tell him I love him, too, and apologize for the letter I wrote to him. He then invites me and Danny home for the following weekend.

  Danny and I fly to Michigan. It’s late spring and the weather is ideal. Leaves and flowers have bloomed and I’m happy to see the six massive cottonwood trees that line the front yard. My parents are there to greet us, and much to my dismay, I find that we will be alone with them the entire weekend.

  All weekend, my father is overaccommodating, telling jokes, acting exactly as he would have with one of my sister’s boyfriends. He’s trying really hard.

  I say, “Dad, you’re embarrassing me.”

  He certainly is, but at the same time I’m deeply touched that he loves me so much that he is willing to put aside all his hitherto die-hard beliefs and prejudices. In fact, he has gone the extra few miles to demonstrate his acceptance of me and my sexual choices, because had I brought a girl with me for the weekend, he would never have allowed us to sleep in the same room together. Later, he even went so far as to ignore Madonna’s exalted status, both in the world and in our family, and banned her and Carlos Leon from sharing the same bedroom because they were unmarried.

  Yet with me, he has pulled out all the psychological stops and has even instructed Joan to make up the bedroom next to his and hers for Danny and me. I know that the walls are practically made of cardboard and that my parents will hear every single sound through them. I suggest to Danny that we have sex, but are unable to because we can’t stop laughing. We bounce up and down on the bed instead, doing our best to make my parents uncomfortable. Despite our mischievous moment of immaturity, the weekend goes great. Afterward, my father and I begin speaking regularly and the subject of my being gay doesn’t come up again.

  Sometime later, Danny and I get an invitation from Melanie to her upcoming wedding in Michigan. I know all my family will be there. We accept. A week later, I get a call from my father asking if I am bringing Danny with me. I tell him that of course I am. He tells me he wishes I wouldn’t because many of our distant relatives don’t know about my sexuality.

  I say, “You know what, Dad, I’m coming and Danny is coming. Melanie invited us both and that’s that.”

  I realize that it is taking my father longer to accept my sexuality than I thought. At the wedding, I introduce Danny as my friend and my father avoids us. We don’t kiss in front of anyone or hold hands. I’ve got the message. It’s going to take a little more time.

  IT’S 1988, AND Sean is making a heavy, serious movie, Casualties of War, and is completely out of step with Madonna, her life, her art, and, in particular, her friends. He’s also far from amused by her latest playmate, the self-avowed lesbian, hip comedienne Sandra Bernhard. Whenever I see Sandra and Madonna together, Sandra seems enthralled by Madonna, almost worshipful. Whereas in my estimation Madonna is just playing around with her. She and Sandra hang out at clubs all over the city, sometimes with Jennifer Grey, who has just split from Matthew Broderick, and the three of them celebrate Sandra’s birthday at The World together. Madonna and Sandra pose happily for press pictures together. Clearly aware that the cameras are on hand to immortalize the tableau, Sandra rests her head on Madonna’s shoulder, while Madonna runs her fingers through Sandra’s hair.

  On July 1, 1988, Madonna makes a surprise, unscheduled appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on which Sandra is guesting. The reason, of course, is publicity; Ciao Italia: Live from Italy has been released on home video and, just weeks after her Letterman appearance, catapults to number one. Her way of promoting herself, though, is quintessential Madonna.

  By prior arrangement with the producers, in the middle of Dave’s interview with Sandra, Madonna suddenly materializes on the set, challenging Dave, “Let’s talk about me and Sandra.”

  Letterman asks how she and Sandra spend their time and whether he could hang out with them.

  “If you get a sex change,” Madonna cracks.

  I can tell she thinks she is being funny.

  It gets worse.

  Sandra tells Letterman that she and Madonna hang out at the Cubby Hole, a notorious lesbian bar in the Village.

  “I think it’s time to fess up, get real,” says Madonna. “She doesn’t give a damn about me…. She loves Sean. She’s using me to get to Sean.”

  That ridiculous statement aside, she is clearly working to give the impression that she and Sandra are having a gay affair. I believe that isn’t true. I feel Madonna is just working the PR factor.

  She and Sandra carry on their double act when, in June 1989, they perform Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” at a benefit for saving the rain forests. I attend and don’t find them nearly as funny as I know they think they are.

  Nineteen eighty-eight ends with Madonna signing a two-year film contract with Columbia Pictures and being cited in the 1988 Guinness Book of World Records for selling 11 million copies of True Blue, which hit number one in twenty-eight countries.

  By now, Madonna is spending most of her time in her Manhattan apartment on Central Park West. At first, I was really disappointed that she bought that apartment because, to me, the building—a 1915 brick building, built in the arts and crafts style—is ugly.

  She and Sean have tried and failed to get into the San Remo and the Dakota, so this place seemed a good second best. Besides, she wanted to live by the park. The apartment is on the sixth floor, facing the park, but as the years go by, the trees grow taller, obscuring the view completely. Not that Madonna cares too much. She far prefers New York to L.A., and until she moves to London, Central Park West is her favorite home.

  Now that she is on the verge of divorcing Sean—which, true to family tradition, she and I never discuss—Madonna asks me to design and decorate her New York apartment so she can live in it permanently. As far as s
he is now concerned, I’ve clearly proven myself and won her trust—she gives me a credit card with my name on it, charged to her account, and doesn’t even set a budget.

  So I go furniture shopping for the apartment, buy a couple of simple sofas, some chairs, not in any particular style, a dining room table, and some stools. Without realizing it at the time—thanks to my sister, as ever, the instrument of my fate—I am becoming an interior designer.

  Eventually, she will buy the apartment next door, join it to the first, then later add a third and a fourth, all of which I design.

  The first time around, I decorate the apartment’s entrance in a muted gray; a 1930s Fresson print by French photographer Laure Albin-Guillot, entitled Nude, hangs on the wall above a gilded, late-nineteenth-century Russian chair.

  Léger’s Les Deux Bicyclettes, the first major artwork I encouraged Madonna to purchase, hangs above the wood-burning fireplace. My sister loves fireplaces and also has one in her bedroom, opposite her theatrical burl-maple bed with copper trim, which is lit by a burnished-copper, oval ceiling light fixture that I designed for her.

  I also design the barrel-vaulted hallway, in which hang many female nudes, including Nude 1929 by George Platt Lynes, and a series of nude distortions by André Kertész. I also design Madonna’s rosewood desk, and her stainless steel kitchen, complete with microwave, in which she likes to make popcorn. Rice Krispies Treats represent the rest of her culinary repertoire. Generally, when she entertains, either I cook or she hires a caterer or in more recent years, a French macrobiotic chef. On those evenings, the rooms are lit by her favorite gardenia-scented Diptyque candles.

  While I am designing the kitchen, Madonna asks me to create a breakfast nook rather like a booth in a 1950s diner, which she feels is perfect for small, intimate gatherings.