Madonna Height, Age, Husband, Boyfriend, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Madonna

• Madonna holds the Guinness World Record for selling over 300 million albums and hence being the best-selling female recording artist of all time.

• She has been named the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

• She is also has been listed as the second highest-certified female artist in the US for selling over 64.5 million albums.

• Madonna through her concerts since 1990, has collected US $1.31 billion, second to none.

• She was taken on board to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame within the first year of her eligibility.

• Madonna was also one of the five founding members of the UK Hall of Fame.

• She owns the entertainment company Maverick which includes the Maverick Record Label. Maverick’s involvement in collaborations has brought it lucrative deals with Live Nation and Inters cope record.

• She is also listed as the artist to have the Billboard’s Greatest Hot 100 Artists of all time, only second to Beatles.

• Madonna has the same first name as her mother.

• Madonna was not aware that her mother was suffering from cancer, although she could see her health deteriorate. Her mother would just well up whenever Madonna asked her about her health.

• Madonna and her siblings were never accepting of any housekeeper who was brought in to replace their mother.

• Madonna told the magazine Vanity that she felt lonely in her youth and wasn’t the usual girl who shaved her underarms or wear make-up but she wanted to be good at something.

• After her mother’s death, she was afraid that her father would be taken away from her too, and she could not sleep till she was near him.

• She started drifting away from her father too when he married the housekeeper and became rebellious.

• She was known for her high-point performance and her notoriety at the same time.

• Talking about her notoriety, she would pull her skirt up just so that the boys could take a look under it!

• She also did cartwheels and handstands in the hallways and hung upside down from the monkey bars in the recess. Her father shouldn’t have married the housekeeper.

• She was a straight-A student in her school.

• She shifted to New York after dropping out of college to pursue a career in dancing and worked as a waitress at Dunking Donuts to support herself while taking dance lessons at  Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

• About coming to New York, Madonna said, “It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done.”

• While walking down the street coming back from a rehearsal, a bunch of perverted schmucks asked her to perform fellatio at knife-point breaking down a strong girl’s confidence. She stated some time later and said, “the episode was a taste of my weakness, it showed me that I still could not save myself in spite of all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it.”

• Before making it big, she worked as a backup dancer too.

• Her first singing performance was in the band Breakfast Club, which she joined through her love interest Dan Gilroy. She sang as well as played drums and guitar for the band.

• She left the band Breakfast Club and joined her ex-boyfriend  Stephen Bray forming the band Emmy.

• Madonna, like everybody, did not try to find a successful formula to stick to it; rather she experimented with different styles and pushed the boundaries as an artist.

• Musicologist Susan McClary said about Madonna that “Madonna’s art itself repeatedly deconstructs the traditional notion of the unified subject with finite ego boundaries. Her pieces explore various ways of constituting identities that refuse stability, that remain fluid, that resist definition.”

• Madonna has been writing and composing the songs for her album by herself since the days of Breakfast Club, when she had started writing songs with Dan.

• Rolling Stone said “an exemplary songwriter with a gift for hooks and indelible lyrics.”

• Her voice type is mezzo-soprano.

• Psychiatrist Keith Ablow said that she was devastated by her mother’s death and  that changed her but author Lucy O’Brien said it was the rape and male violence that pushed her to change the course of her life and she reversed every situation with her work.

• She adapted Kabbalah in 2004 and also the name Esther (Meaning ‘star’).

• Her movie Shanghai Surprise in which she starred opposite Sean Penn, took $17 million to make it and grossed just $2 million. She got three Razzi Worst Performances awards and the only one so.

• Madonna won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance in Evita (1985) beating Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Debbie Reynolds, and Barbra Streisand.

• She said her then-husband Sean Penn is “the coolest guy in the universe” and dedicated her album ‘True Blue’ to him.

• Madonna declined to have a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on being nominated in 1990.

• Madonna cursed 13 times on Late Night Show with David Letterman and it became the most censored telecast of American TV and the most viewed David Letterman show.

• Madonna sued Cybersquatter for using Madonna.com as their domain name for a porn site and won the case.

• Since 15 years old, she hasn’t had meat and been a vegetarian all her life since then.

• She can not control the urge for attention to detail and knowing what’s happening around her.

• Gwyneth Paltrow was her Maid of honor at her wedding with Guy Richie. Their son’s Godfather is Sting.

• Madonna has won five Grammys out of 18 nominations.

• Madonna has the most Billboard number ones under three different listings, all amounting to 156 in total.

• She has an IQ of 140.

• The Family Organisation tried to ban the video for ‘Like a Virgin’ for promoting sex before marriage, whereas her manager was all gaga for it.

• Penthouse and Playboy published Madonna’s nude photographs in 1985, which were taken in her early days of coming to New York.

• When Madonna and Sean Penn filed for divorce, although her lawyer pinned it on Sean for his drinking problem Madonna said,  “I was completely obsessed with my career and not ready to be generous in any shape or form.”

• There was a behind-the-scenes look at the intimate backstage incidents of the Blond Ambition Tour called Truth or Dare.

• After several sexual acts, like handing her a pair of underwear to David Letterman, a lot of people thought that it is the end of her career.

• In 1994, she toned it down when she got involved with Carlos Leon. It was around the same time when she wrote a letter to the director Alan Parker to secure her role in Evita.

• Ray of Light was another turn in her style, which she released after her daughter’s birth and she won four Grammys for it.

• She wrote a children’s book which was was listed as a best-seller in the New York Times.

• Madonna left Warner Bros. in 2007 and joined Live Nation Artists.

• On 30 April 2020, she took to Instagram to announce that she tested positive for COVID-19. She said in the video clip,
  

  I took a test the other day, and I found out that I have the antibodies. So tomorrow I’m just going to go for a long drive in the car, I’m going to roll down the window and I’m going to breathe in the COVID-19 air. Yup. I hope the sun is shining.”