Madonna is opening up about the state of her relationship with her brother, Christopher Ciccone, prior to his 2024 death.
The Queen of Pop appeared on Monday’s episode of “On Purpose with Jay Shetty,” and in the wide-ranging interview, shared how she and her late sibling came to make amends following years of estrangement.
“It’s important to find a way to forgive even people that you perceive as your biggest enemies,” she explained. “For a really long time, it was my brother, who died recently, because I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like you’re the closest to … the people that hurt you the most are the people you love the most.”
She went on to note: “If someone you love deeply betrays you, and does something that shows that they have no consciousness in that moment that they made that choice to do that, it’s a bitter pill for me to swallow.”
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Ciccone, one of Madonna’s seven Michigan-born siblings, died of pancreatic cancer last year at age 63. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he was seen as one of his famous sister’s closest confidantes, appearing as a backup dancer in the music video for her 1983 smash, “Lucky Star.”
He further collaborated with Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour and 1993 Girlie Show Tour, and also decorated the interiors of her New York and Los Angeles homes.
The pair reportedly fell out during Madonna’s eight-year marriage to British film director Guy Ritchiewhich ended in divorce in 2008. That same year, Ciccone published a tell-all book, “Life with My Sister Madonna,” in which he delved into his sister’s private life, alluding she’d undergone cosmetic surgery and sharing less-than-flattering details of her relationships with Ritchie as well as her first husband, actor Sean Penn.
In her chat with Shetty, Madonna revealed that she and Ciccone didn’t speak for “years and years,” and that a turning point came when he became ill and reached out for her help.
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“It was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down, to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand, even if he was dying, and saying, ‘I love you and I forgive you,’” she said. “That was really important.”
Madonna’s own recent illness ― a bacterial infection that kept her hospitalized for several days and prompted her to postpone her 2023 Celebration Tour ― cemented her hope of putting her feud with her brother behind her.
“I was almost there on the other side,” she recalled. “I had a conscious moment and my mother appeared to me and she said, ‘Do you want to come with me?’ And I said, ‘No.’”
“When I did eventually wake up,” she continued, “I realized that the ‘No’ was about me needing to forgive and make good with people that I still held grudges against.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Madonna revealed the titles of two as-yet unreleased songs, “Fragile” and “Forgive Yourself,” that she said had been inspired in part by Ciccone.
Both tracks are believed to appear on her forthcoming album, which has been touted as a sequel to her Grammy-winning 2005 album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” and slated for a 2026 release.
Catch Madonna’s appearance on “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” here. Her comments on Christopher Ciccone begin around the 1:12:00 mark.
