“She shouted at him a lot”: Christopher Ciccone Started to Hate Doing “Embarassing” Jobs For Madonna When She Was Still Not Famous
Madonna is a massive music icon, and people wonder what it’s like to work with someone like her. Throughout her career spanning over 40 years, she’s collaborated with tons of professionals, but not many realize that her brother, Christopher Ciccone, played a significant role in her journey for a large part of it. He played a huge role, especially during the early years of her rise to fame.
Madonna interviewed on Jimmy Fallon’s show (Credits: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon)
However, things weren’t always smooth, according to his book. Ciccone was given a lot of responsibilities as Madonna’s employee, but there was something about his sister’s behavior that really got to him and ended up affecting their personal relationship. Now, with his recent passing, all that remains are the memories.
Christopher Ciccone Didn’t Have A Good Professional Relationship With His Sister Madonna
Madonna and Christopher Ciccone (@madonna/Instagram)
Christopher Ciccone was an artist and designer with a background in dance, which is how he became involved in his sister Madonna‘s life and career. Out of her five siblings, he was the one who stood by her side from the very beginning. However, at a certain point, things started to get rocky between them.
In 2008, Ciccone released a best-selling autobiography titled Life with My Sister Madonna, where he held nothing back in sharing the behind-the-scenes stories of the pop star’s life and their complex relationship. It turns out that Madonna was quite controlling from a young age.
As her brother and one of her employees, Ciccone had a front-row seat to all the changes in her life over the years. However, he struggled to handle her increasingly controlling personality. In 2009, he even sat down for an interview with The Guardian, where he opened up about his experiences working alongside his sister.
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Ciccone was Madonna’s closest sibling, and it seems her desire for fame may have stemmed from the trauma of losing their mother at such a young age. However, their stepmother also played a significant role in shaping her personality, which Ciccone believes was the “inspiration” behind her controlling tendencies.
Her brother revealed that for Madonna, everything “has to be done her way, according to her timetable, and life must be lived by her rules.” This mentality affected their dynamic from the very beginning when Ciccone was one of her two dancers before eventually becoming her costume assistant as she rose to fame. In fact, he admits he’s a bit embarrassed to say that:
Well, technically, it was beneath me. I did it because she needed me, but it bred resentment. Not many people would have been able to deal with her stuff [she shouted at him a lot].
Later on, he took on the role of director for her shows and even became the interior designer for her homes, but by then, their rocky relationship was already established. Ciccone didn’t enjoy doing any kind of work for his sister, but he did like being someone she relied on.
One day, Madonna let him go. The exact reason isn’t clear, but it seems to be connected to her marriage to Guy Ritchie. That’s when Ciccone started getting into drugs and feeling totally isolated. Until then, as actor Rupert Everett put it in his autobiography, “the one was incomprehensible without the other.”
16 Years After Publishing Book About Madonna, Christopher Ciccone Dies at 63
Madonna and Christopher Ciccone (@madonna/Instagram)
Ciccone had been diagnosed with cancer and had been fighting the disease for a while. He passed away at the age of 63 on Friday (4) in Michigan, United States, according to a statement reported by TMZ.
Shortly after parting ways with his sister, he kept working but didn’t quite hit the same heights as before. This led him to write his book in 2008, which landed at number two on the New York Times bestseller list.
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According to The Guardian, there were rumors that Madonna didn’t take the release very well and saw it as a betrayal. Ciccone also mentioned that he felt hated by the singer’s fans in two ways:
(…) there are two factions. People who hate me because they think I’ve betrayed their icon. And then the people who hate me because they think I haven’t betrayed her enough.
Madonna addressed her brother’s death in an Instagram post, acknowledging their complicated relationship but admitting that they managed to reconcile before his passing:
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Madonna (@madonna)
In the same interview, Ciccone admitted that, despite everything, he missed working with her.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
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