Life with My Sister Madonna

by Christopher Ciccone

  Later that night, Demi invites me to go to Paris with her in the morning. I tell her that all my stuff is at Naomi and Kate’s. She sends someone to pack up my stuff and bring it to the hotel. I am duly impressed.

  We stay up all night. Everyone is having a blast. At around four in the morning, for some strange reason, I decide to take a bath. I turn on the water, then promptly forget about it. The next thing I turn, Demi’s Louis Vuitton luggage is floating around the room. I feel foolish, but she laughs it off. The hotel staff promptly set about cleaning up the room. In the morning, we fly by private jet to Paris and hang out there together.

  From then on, Demi and I get closer and closer. On June 5, 1997, I am her date at the Gucci evening for AIDS Project L.A. From that time on, we hang out together at least once a week. I like her enormously, but am slightly put off by her heavy-handed spiritual sensibility. She carries around a deck of cards that look like tarot, but aren’t, lays them out for me, telling me that they will predict my future, but I’m not that interested. I’m focused on the present.

  In the past, Demi has had drug and alcohol problems. She’s been sober for years, but still exhibits obsessive habits. She lives on coffee, Red Bull, and dried green apples. One night, we go to dinner at Benvenuto on Santa Monica. She brings with her two cans of Red Bull. She orders pasta, which she doesn’t eat, drinks Red Bull and coffee, and smokes Marlboros in rapid succession.

  Some nights, she picks me up with some of her girlfriends and we all go to this Latin drag-queen club on La Brea, where Demi gets onstage and dances with a group of drag queens. She and I also make great dance partners. At Christmas she sends me a black-and-white card featuring a little boy in a suit and bow tie dancing with a Kewpie doll. In it, Demi writes, “Someone to dance with when I’m not around.” By now, she and I are very close. Sometimes a little too close for my comfort.

  “Are you sure you are really gay, Christopher?” she would ask me over and over. “I mean, couldn’t you turn straight for me?”

  Later on, when I meet Farrah Fawcett and start hanging out with her as well, she also repeatedly poses the identical questions to me.

  I don’t know how serious either of them is, but I do have some experience with women who have the hots for me. Ever since my college days, I have been pursued by women set on luring me into their beds. Of course, few of them have succeeded.

  Thanks to Demi, though, the media are about to start posing interesting questions about my sexual preference.

  One Saturday night, when I am hosting an evening at Atlantic, Demi and three or four of her girlfriends show up. As always, at around eleven, we clear the center of the restaurant, a DJ starts spinning music, and all of us—along with the restaurant patrons—spend the rest of the night dancing. All great fun.

  On this evening, at around 3 a.m., Demi—a girl who no longer drinks, but clearly still relishes having fun—persuades me to get up and dance on the black granite bar with her.

  Within moments, I’m up there and we’re dancing wildly. Demi pulls off my shirt, gets behind me, and starts grinding into me.

  Normally at this time of the night we would have had the restaurant doors bolted shut, and the blinds would have been pulled down tight, so that anyone passing by would have assumed that the restaurant was closed. But by some strange Murphy’s Law, although I didn’t realize it at the time, that night one of the blinds is left open enough for some enterprising paparazzo to point his lens through the crack and snatch a photograph of our revels.

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, I am walking through Los Angeles airport, about to catch a flight to New York, and out of the corner of my eye catch sight of what looks like a picture of me on the cover of the National Enquirer. I walk up to the rack and discover that I am also on the cover of the Star.

  Both covers feature fuzzy shots of Demi and a shirtless me dancing together on the bar at Atlantic. Inside one tabloid is a spread and the eye-catching headline “It’s Three A.M. No Bruce, No Bra, No Problem.” The second carries the cover line “Demi’s Big Night Out with Madonna’s Brother.”

  I am a little troubled that both articles might give Demi pause and cause her to think that I set the whole thing up to get publicity for Atlantic, which I definitely did not. I was afraid she wouldn’t believe me and would then lose trust in me. But I am innocent, and thankfully Demi believes me.

  Apart from that, I enjoy all the unexpected attention. I am on the cover of the Enquirer and the Star, both in the same week. For just a few days, I feel as if I am a star and I like it. I am, after all, my sister’s brother.

  ON JULY 15, 1997, in front of his mansion on Ocean Drive, South Beach, Gianni Versace is shot at close range by crazed killer Andrew Cunanan. Madonna and I are both deeply shocked by his senseless murder. Just a few weeks later, we are both shaken by the death of Princess Diana in Paris. We think back to how we were also chased through Paris by the paparazzi and realize that, but for the grace of God…

  ON SEPTEMBER 8, 1997, Madonna and I attend the Gianni Versace memorial service at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Madonna and Gianni have always had a business relationship, have never been great friends, but out of respect to his memory, Madonna and I attend the memorial service anyway.

  We gather in the museum’s Temple of Dendur, which is decorated with magnificent white flowers. Madonna reads a poem she’s written to commemorate Gianni; Elton John and Whitney Houston sing. Many of the supermodels—Stephanie Seymour, Christy Turlington, Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Amber Valletta—are there. So are Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren, and Marc Jacobs.

  Donatella, making her first public statement since Gianni’s murder, gives a speech commemorating him and touching on the profound influence he had on her and her brother Santo. “By the time he was calling Santo and myself to be part of his dream, we were already part of it. He let me do many things that made our mother pale…. I laugh when I remember the adventures that came with being his little sister…. Each time Gianni would ask me to do what back then seemed like these impossible things, I’d tell him I couldn’t do it, he’d tell me I could, and I did. He was always the most exciting person I knew; he was always my best friend.”

  Her speech, which brings tears to my eyes, is close to what I might have said about Madonna, with the exception of the last line: “In spite of his giant personality, it was impossible to feel overshadowed by him, because his special art was to shine the light on others.” The speech is extremely moving, and I am very sad for Donatella.

  Afterward, she invites us back to the mansion off Fifth Avenue. Like the Miami Versace mansion, the five-story Manhattan Versace mansion is all done in heavy neoclassical style, lots of gilt, marble, black-marble floors, and Picassos on many of the walls—hard to relax in, extremely formal.

  Madonna and I join a circle of guests in the small garden, sitting on clear plastic folding chairs, all arranged in a circle. Madonna sits on my right, and a woman who looks like a bag lady sits on my left. Madonna whispers to me that the bag lady is Lisa Marie Presley. I am incredulous, but on second glance realize that she is, indeed, Lisa Marie.

  Then Pavarotti makes his entrance and, although we all know exactly who he is, goes around introducing himself.

  “Hello, I’m Pavarotti. Hello, I’m Pavarotti,” he announces to each and every one of us.

  Courtney Love is also there, but Madonna avoids talking to her because she thinks Courtney is crazy. Courtney and I have a moment’s conversation in which she says, “I see Madonna and me as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, but I can’t work out who is who.”

  I smile and shrug.

  At around ten thirty, Madonna, who always goes to bed at eleven on the dot, leaves, but I stay.

  By this time, Donatella has changed from her black outfit into white jeans and a white shirt. Her face isn’t tear-stained, but she looks pensive. She sits down next to me briefly, then excuses herself and disappears.

  I go upstairs to the bathroom
.

  When I pass one of the guest bedrooms, I see Courtney—dressed in a beige silk minidress with spaghetti straps, her hair as messy as ever—sitting on the bed, looking sad.

  She is all by herself, so I sit with her and we start talking. Then she pulls out a packet of coke, which may well have been half an ounce.

  “I’ve got this,” she says, “but I’ve never done it before. Would you like to do some?”

  I fight to stop myself from bursting out laughing. “You’ve never done it before?”

  “No, I’ve never done it before.”

  “Would you like me to show you?”

  Courtney nods, so I go through the pantomime of showing her how to cut lines, which I suspect we both know she knows only too well, but I play along.

  We start to party together.

  Then Donatella beckons from her sitting room across the hall—furnished with black leather sofas, with a white mink rug on the floor—and we join her. I break my rule about not doing lines and we all do them. It’s patently obvious that the drugs are a continuing symptom of her anguish at the loss of Gianni.

  Every time Courtney does a line, she proclaims, “Okay, that’s my second time. That’s my third time. That’s my fourth time.”

  In the end, I say, “Courtney, just stop counting.”

  Meanwhile, Donatella keeps saying, “Chreestopher, Chreestopher, play ‘Candle in the Wind’ for me.”

  So I put on the CD, and the moment it ends, Donatella asks me to play it again.

  “Chreestopher, Chreestopher, play it for me one more time, one more time for me, Chreestopher.”

  I do. Over and over.

  All the while, Courtney is still counting. “This is my fiftieth time. This is my fifty-first time.”

  Then the doorbell rings and it’s Ed Norton, whom Courtney is seeing at the time.

  She says, “Christopher, go tell him I’m sleeping.”

  I refuse. Then I decide that the time has come for me to escape this surreal scenario and get back to reality, so I leave.

  ON OCTOBER 14, 1997, Demi invites me to escort her to the premiere of G.I. Jane. I am slightly nervous that the memory of the photographs of our wild dance at Atlantic on the cover of the Star and the Enquirer might still rankle with her estranged husband, Bruce Willis, who will be attending the premiere that night.

  As I don’t want there to be any lingering misconceptions about my relationship with Demi, or about my sexuality, when I am introduced to Bruce, I say, “I want you to know that I’m not having an affair with your wife, and I’m a fag.”

  He says, “Don’t worry about it.”

  Just before Demi meets Ashton for the first time, I am in Manhattan and so are she and Bruce. She invites me over to her apartment at the San Remo. When I tell her I am flying to L.A. the next day, she says that she and Bruce are flying to Idaho the next morning. She is stopping there with the children, but he is flying on to L.A. Would I like a ride? I would and accept the offer.

  Their private jet is comfortable, with a sofa, a dining room, a banquette full of candy and mags, a galley, and a big bathroom, and all can smoke whenever they want, which suits me fine.

  I suggested to Madonna that she should get her own plane, just so she could fly whenever she wants to. But she says, “That’s too expensive. I’m not spending my money on a plane. And I don’t have to! I’ll use the Warner company jet.” She does, and we travel on it together quite often.

  Demi and I talk during the flight, then play cards, but Bruce and I have little to say to each other. We land in Sun Valley. Demi and Bruce have split up and live in separate houses there. She drives to her house alone. While the plane refuels, Bruce and I drive over to his house in his Suburban to get something he needs to take to L.A. He points out the little theater he’s restored and all the property he owns there. He seems like a good guy, but a sense of unhappiness surrounds him, a sadness that he and Demi have split up. We stop at his house. I remain in the car and realize that his home is across the street from hers.

  During the short flight to L.A., awkward silences occur between us. We smoke cigarettes and read magazines, but the short flight feels like five days to me. When we land, Bruce’s Bentley is awaiting him. I have a car pick me up and we go our separate ways.

  I see Bruce and Demi again when they bring their daughter up to a music school in Traverse City, Michigan, while I was there visiting my family. They call and ask if they can come over and I show them around the vineyard. There, Bruce meets one of the blondes who works in the tasting room and starts flirting with her. Demi is wandering around somewhere else, and I tell him to stop flirting with the staff.

  Three weeks later he calls me. “Remember that blond girl I was talking to? Well, I’d like to go on a date with her. Will you call her up and ask her?”

  “Sure, no problem,” I say in amusement.

  So I call my father, ask for the girl’s name, and call her.

  “Listen,” I tell her, “this is going to sound rather strange, but Bruce Willis would like to go on a date with you. His daughter is at school in Traverse City so he is coming up here a lot. Do you feel like going on a date with him?”

  She says she doesn’t because she has a boyfriend.

  I tell her to dump him, but she just laughs at me.

  I give Bruce the news.

  “Too bad,” he says.

  I don’t feel that bad for him, though. After all, he’s Bruce Willis and has a thousand romantic options.

  A year later, he calls me again and asks about her, if she’s still with her boyfriend, if she’ll go out with him.

  She is and she won’t.

  And then again a year after that.

  The blonde is still with her boyfriend, so Bruce strikes out.

  I AM STILL painting. In Miami, over lunch with Ingrid, I meet a fourteen-year-old Colombian schoolboy named Esteban Cortazar, whose parents are artists. He tells me that when he grows up, he wants to become a fashion designer. I sense a fire burning in him—an intensity that reminds me of the young Madonna. Following my instinct, I invite him to dinner that night with her and Bruce Weber.

  Once I study Esteban’s fashion design book, I discover that my hunch about him was right—he is an original talent. So I tell him that I believe that he has a bright and brilliant future ahead of him and that I want to make a documentary about him that I will film over at least ten years. After his parents consent to the project, I set up a dinner for ten of the people closest to Esteban and interview them about him on camera. Over the next decade, each year I will do the same thing, as well as film him during important moments in his life.

  At the time of this writing, Esteban has just been appointed the head of women’s wear for the house of Ungaro. I almost burst out with pride in him and am also delighted that my faith in Esteban has been eminently justified.

  THANKSGIVING 1997 AND Madonna says I can invite a few friends down to the Coconut Grove house, which she doesn’t visit much anymore now that she has Lola. Naomi, Kate, and Demi come down; so does Barry Diller. I realize that I am getting far too caught up in the celebrity thing. It’s fun, but I am also quite lonely.

  At the start of 1998, Madonna calls and tells me she is planning to go on tour and asks me to come over to Cockerham and talk possibilities with her. I am thrilled at the prospect of touring again. I bring my ideas book, in which, through the years since Girlie, I’ve been collecting photos, art, anything that I think might be inspiring.

  Madonna and I have an in-depth conversation about the tour. I suggest that onstage, she have a big tree with leaves that change color, symbolizing the change in seasons—and that her songs parallel those changes. She likes the idea. She keeps the file containing my tree concept. I am excited, and—once more craving the heady euphoria of collaborating creatively with my sister and the adrenaline rush of being on tour with her—can’t wait for rehearsals to start. A few weeks later, she calls and tells me she has decided to postpone the tour, and I am bitterly
disappointed.

  However, I don’t voice my disappointment to her. And I am happy when, on July 1, 1998, she invites me to see the Spice Girls concert at Madison Square Garden with her and Lola.

  We arrive at the last minute. When the crowds see Madonna, they start shouting and screaming. Madonna and I sit on either side of Lola and are invited backstage to meet the girls forty-five minutes into the show, during intermission.

  We go into Madonna’s old dressing room, and it looks just like a girls’ dorm room. Clothes are everywhere. The girls are sitting on the sofa, eating hot dogs.

  Madonna can’t believe her eyes. “What are you guys doing? How can you eat a hot dog and onions in the middle of the show, and then go out and sing?”

  They tell us that it doesn’t bother them, and when Madonna and I go back to our seats, it seems that the hot dogs don’t have any impact whatsoever on their singing or dancing.

  “They can’t really dance; they can’t really sing. And who the hell eats hot dogs between sets!” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.

  For Lola’s sake, we endure another fifteen minutes of the show, then split.

  Madonna and I see Cabaret on Broadway, starring Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson. The production is set up with the audience seated café style in front of the stage, affording us the illusion that we are participating in the show. Madonna loves it, even though she isn’t big on Broadway musicals.

  By now I have written a second screenplay, “Fashion Victims,” based on a Cunanan-style serial killer, who sets about murdering all the world’s great fashion designers. I show it to Madonna. She tells me I am going to get in trouble over the script, as it is a daring but funny take on the fashion industry. I go ahead anyway and try to interest producers in it, but no dice.

  DONATELLA VERSACE AND I are now extremely good friends. Only a year has passed since the death of Gianni, and she is extremely delicate. She was his sister, his muse, but was never intended to run an empire.