Life with My Sister Madonna (32 page)

“Yes, but I don't want to have it with them.”

“Well, then, come or don't come,” I say, exasperated. “But it's my birthday, and I really wish you would.”

She finally agrees to go, and we drive to the Delano in separate cars.

At the Delano's Blue Door restaurant, of which Madonna is part owner, a big table has been set up.

Kate and Naomi have done the place cards. Madonna, dressed in black Dolce & Gabbana, is at one end of the table with Ingrid. I am at the other end with Kate on one side and Naomi on the other.

I am seated with the hostesses and enjoy this rare occasion of being in the same room as my sister and not being eclipsed by her. I can see her looking down her nose at Kate and Naomi and whispering to Ingrid about them. Kate gives me this funny pack of dirty girlie cards from the fifties. Even from far down the table, I can feel Madonna's disapproval, but I don't care. I'm enjoying myself.

The cake is served. The girls toast me. Madonna joins the toast. Then the girls start getting raucous. Madonna makes a face, then she and Ingrid get up abruptly and leave.

Kate, Naomi, and I all go dancing after dinner. I arrive back at the house at five and set off the alarm by accident. Madonna is livid and accuses me of doing drugs. She isn't wrong. I am not painting much and am just hanging out, kind of lost, playing with supermodels. My mood is growing darker and darker.

Madonna, in contrast, is very much involved with Lola and immersed in the Kabbalah movement, and has a new man in her life, ten years her junior: British director Guy Ritchie.

Trudie and Sting introduce him to Madonna when they both attend a lunch party at their home in Wiltshire. Like Sean, Guy comes from a middle-class family, with links to the Scottish military dating back to the twelfth century. I later find out that Guy has been named after two forebears who served in the Seaforth Highlanders, a romantic-sounding Scottish regiment. His great-grandfather Sir William Ritchie was a gunner major general in the Indian army, and his grandfather Major Stewart Ritchie was posthumously awarded the Military Cross after he was killed in the escape from Dunkirk during World War II. Guy's father, John, was also in the Seaforths, and Guy's stepfather, Sir Michael Leighton, is an English aristocrat. All in all, young Mr. Ritchie seems to have a lot of history behind him, and a great many illustrious forebears casting a heavy shadow over him.

It seems to me that he has a great deal to live up to. Consequently, in a way, I can understand why—instead of focusing his filmmaking talents on immortalizing his patently distinguished family history—he employs them on making what some term a “homophobic” movie about London gangsters,
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
I am eager to meet this Brit who appears to have captivated my sister so much.

D
ECEMBER
31, 1999, Donatella has a New Year's Eve party at Casa Casuarina, her Miami mansion, where I first meet Guy Ritchie. He is friendly to me, and I remember thinking that he looked boyish and seemed like a nice guy. He is conventionally dressed in a white shirt and dark-blue trousers and jacket, and I warm to him. He is personable and respectful and seems as if he might be fun to hang out with. Nonetheless, I tell myself that I doubt he'll outlast Madonna's usual two-year relationship cycle.

I go into the garden with my good friend Dan Sehres. We find Donatella sitting at a corner table, glamorous in a silver dress. She looks beautiful, but seems depressed—no doubt thinking of Gianni and happier times at the mansion. She chain-smokes, lighting cigarette after cigarette with her glittery pink diamanté-covered lighter. Next to her, her own special packs of Marlboro, exclusively designed and manufactured for her at the Milan Versace atelier—with the words
SMOKING KILLS
eradicated and replaced by her initials, inscribed in Gothic script.

We have cocktails with her at the table, along with Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Rupert Everett, and Gwyneth, who is currently in a flirtation with Guy Oseary, now running Maverick Records for Madonna, and sits close to him.

Just before midnight, Ingrid rushes out into the courtyard.

“J.Lo is here,” she announces, “and we're not talking to her.”

I flash back to a recent newspaper article and remember that Gwyneth and Madonna are feuding with J.Lo because J.Lo was quoted by a journalist as saying that Madonna couldn't sing and Gwyneth couldn't act. Most unwise.

Everyone, with the exception of Donatella and me, gives J.Lo the cold shoulder.

At midnight sharp, we are all momentarily distracted from the dramatic J.Lo-related tension when we all gather round the TV screen and watch the New Year's Eve celebrations all over the world. The pope gives his blessing, then they cut to fireworks. It looks as if the pope has blown up. We all dissolve into hysterics, then, of course, look up warily toward the heavens, just in case.

I dance with Donatella on the acrylic dance floor that covers the sunken, gilt-inlay swimming pool. Then someone, I don't recall whom, comes over to me and whispers into my ear that a bunch of us are going to do half a tab of ecstasy.

Around two in the morning, we all move on to the VIP Room of the Bar Room, Ingrid's new club. The VIP is a dark room, small—about fifty by fifty—with large glass windows overlooking the main dance floor.

We all drink Veuve Clicquot, and I can tell everyone is feeling good.

Madonna, Gwyneth, Ingrid, the two Guys, and I are all sitting in a booth.

Gwyneth gives me a playful, lascivious look.

I jump up and pull her onto the dance floor.

It's now around four in the morning. Madonna, who is definitely feeling no pain, is dancing on the table. Gwyneth joins her, and they dance together. In the middle of the dance, Madonna grabs Gwyneth, and kisses her full on the mouth.

It is that sort of a night.

My friend Dan has brought a nineteen-year-old boy to the party with him. The boy is always handling his crotch. And as a result, I call him Scratchy. Madonna, in a knee-length pink chiffon Versace dress, is on the dance floor, dancing with a group of people. We all look good together, and we know it. Suddenly Scratchy squeezes up to Madonna. He edges between us, puts his arms around her, and they dance a slow dance close together.

Within an instant, Guy Ritchie strides across the dance floor. He kicks Scratchy in the leg to get his attention and drags him away from Madonna. Then he swings his fist at him. I push Guy back and yank Scratchy out of the room.

 

T
HE MOMENT PASSES.
The dancing begins again.

I'm on the dance floor, dancing with Gwyneth again.

Suddenly I sense someone coming up behind me.

Guy grabs me from behind and starts bouncing me up and down like a rag doll.

“Put me down!” I say.

I extract myself from his iron grip.

I shove him up against the wall, push into him, and grind my hips right into him.

“If you want to dance with me, this is how we dance here,” I say grimly.

He flushes and pushes me off.

I walk away. I don't give Guy another thought. Rupert, however, is watching us intently, and apparently does. Later, in his autobiography, he comments, “Guy and Chris were from different planets, and in a way the one's success relied on the other not being there.” At that stage, though, I don't focus on Guy's actions because I'm distracted by a commotion on the dance floor: two people are openly doing drugs. Security grabs them both and throws them out.

We all keep on dancing.

The evening fades away.

Somehow, and I can't remember how, I get home.

The next day, Madonna throws a barbecue in the garden, but most of us are so hungover that we just chill out, lounge by the pool, and speak softly.

We only come alive when Lola starts screaming that Mo, Rupert's puppy, is drowning. We dive into the pool and rescue him, whereupon he collapses, and we are terrified. Fortunately, though, after being ministered to by Elsa, the New Age priestess, he recovers.

The afternoon ends, and everyone leaves. Throughout the day, Guy and I haven't said a word to each other. I decide that he is a bit of an oaf, particularly on the dance floor, a drawback with regard to Madonna, as she likes her lovers to dance well.

Above all, it has always been of paramount importance to Madonna that the man in her life be able to deal with the gay men in her life. I can't imagine that Guy will be around for long.

I am wrong, of course. Perhaps I was too close to my sister, too caught up in the drama of that New Year's Eve, to read the writing on the wall. I have no intimation whatsoever that the advent of Guy in Madonna's life is the death knell for my relationship with her.

 

T
HE DECADE ENDS
with
The Guinness Book of World Records
listing Madonna as the most successful female solo artist, citing her as having sold 120 million albums worldwide. The
Blond Ambition
tour is named the Greatest Concert of the 1990s by
Rolling Stone. Entertainment Weekly
lists Madonna as the fifth Top Entertainer of the Half-Century (1950–2000). She is anointed Artist of the Millennium by MTV Asia.

Madonna's latest movie,
The Next Best Thing
, which she makes with Rupert Everett, opens on February 29, 2000. She invites me to the premiere. I go with Billie Myers, a good friend and favorite singer of mine. Madonna is sitting two rows in front of me. The movie is awful. I pretend that I have to go to the bathroom and hope no one notices that I don't come back.

Instead, I stand in the hallway and listen, but at least don't have to watch. Afterward, I tell Madonna that she was great and the movie is funny, but this isn't true. I am glad that I am not alone with her because if we had a proper conversation about the movie, I know she would realize that I am lying. She has no idea whatsoever how bad she is in the movie but I realize that nothing good would come of speaking my mind so I decide not to. The movie has already premiered, and there is nothing that can be done anymore to improve it or my sister's performance in it. Commenting on it negatively to her would be both pointless and destructive and I refuse to go there.

 

T
HAT SAME MONTH,
four months after I finished the latest addition to Coconut Grove, Madonna decides to sell the house. The end of an era. She also still hasn't paid me my final installment for work on the addition.

She is now living in London, where she starts the year by filming her “American Pie” video. In America,
The Immaculate Collection
is certified as having sold 9 million units, and on March 20, 2000, Madonna announces that she is pregnant with Guy's child. I am still not convinced that Guy is in her life to stay, reasoning that she had Lola with Carlos, but still didn't stay with him.

On August 11, 2000, Madonna and Guy's son, Rocco, is born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles. I am in Miami working and so am not there for his birth.

Madonna clearly doesn't intend to stay in California, though, as she is now permanently based in London. There, she meets Prince Charles at a charity dinner at his home in Gloucestershire and, later in the year, gives her first UK concert in seven years, at Brixton Academy, which is seen by 9 million viewers throughout the world and is the biggest live webcast ever, breaking Sir Paul McCartney's 1999 online record of 3 million.

She will become so much a part of life in her new country, England—the country she and I once disliked so much during our first trip there together, all those years ago—that she is even asked to present the prestigious Turner Prize at the Tate Britain Gallery. Doing so, she demonstrates that she hasn't quite lost her American-style Madonna ability to shock: “At a time when political correctness is valued over honesty, I would like to say, right on, motherfucker, everyone is a winner!”

Her comments so scandalize the British television-viewing public that Channel 4 is compelled to issue an apology for them.

Along the way, she breaks the news to me that she and Guy are getting married. I tell her I am glad for her. I am, because I realize that she is vulnerable and needs him. Apart from the fact that Guy must remind her of Sean, she is getting older and needs a father for her children. She casts such a big shadow, and most men just aren't prepared to subjugate themselves to her. I guess that Guy isn't either, but at least he is prepared to marry her.

 

B
Y
O
CTOBER
2000, my finances are in shambles. I have been working on Central, a new restaurant on Sunset Plaza, for most of the year and haven't been paid. I have no choice but to downsize. I give up my apartment in Hollywood and rent a three-bedroom house in Los Angeles proper, renting out the other two rooms. Madonna continues to stall my payment for Coconut Grove. I protest, and we argue.

On October 9, 2000, she sends me a letter saying that she is putting her “indignation aside”—referring to our payment dispute—and inviting me to her wedding. In a backhanded compliment, she says that she is inviting “my close friends and family members that are not insane.” She adds, “We will be married by a vicar in the Church of England because Catholics are a pain and GR doesn't want to convert and besides I'm a divorcée.”

I am not keen to attend the wedding, as I really can't afford it. Moreover, I no longer have any affinity for Guy. So I call to make my apologies.

Madonna isn't around, but her assistant Caresse calls me back: “Madonna told me to tell you if you want to be paid the final payment for Coconut Grove, you have to use the money to buy a ticket to her wedding.”

A knot forms in my stomach. “You are joking, right? Because if you aren't, then she is blackmailing me.” I hang up.

Caresse calls back. “We are going to take the money Madonna owes you, buy you a ticket to Scotland, and send you the money that is left over.”

I ask again if she's kidding, and she tells me she isn't. This is how Madonna wants to proceed.

I spend a few days mulling over the situation. I feel I don't know this person who is attempting to blackmail me into attending her wedding. However, I am consoled that my sister and I can't be on such bad terms as she really does seem to want me at her wedding. So I capitulate.

Caresse gives me the rundown of the wedding plans. I will fly to London a week before the wedding, be fitted for a tuxedo, and the following morning fly to Inverness, a forty-five-minute drive from Skibo Castle, in Dornoch, on the shores of Dornoch Firth in the Scottish Highlands. On December 21, Rocco will be christened, and the wedding will take place on December 22.

Later, I discover that before the wedding, the staff are forced to sign a four-page confidentiality agreement, that none of the guests is allowed mobile phones, and that we are all banned from leaving the castle during the five-day wedding celebrations. Moreover, seventy security guards will be on hand to ensure that no press infiltrate Skibo, and no guest escapes either. Colditz Castle, here I come!

A business-class British Airways ticket is messengered to me from Madonna's office. When I check the price, I discover that only a few hundred dollars of my final fee remain.

Once in London, I follow Caresse's instructions and go to Moss Bros on Regent Street to rent my tuxedo. They hand me this gray cutaway that all the male guests are supposed to wear. It's pure polyester, and when I slide the jacket on, it burns my fingers. The shop assistant presents me with the rental bill. “Put it on Guy's bill,” I say, and walk out.

That night, I go out to dinner with friends. We party, and I end up going to bed at five in the morning. Consequently, I miss my flight to Inverness. At the airport, a BA official takes pity on me and arranges for me to fly to Edinburgh, and from there to Inverness. I am not particularly happy, but I am still curious about Scotland and am interested to discover what it's like.