After a normal childhood in Michigan, Madonna found herself dancing in New York, unaware
that in a few years, she'd be the biggest pop star in the world.
Acting gigs, controversial moments of course, plenty of fame followed.
Here's how Madonna came to be who she is today.
Madonna grew up in a big family and, as she told MSNBC News in 1987, that helped give
her drive and ambition.
She explained she always wanted to, quote, "go somewhere and be somebody."
"You want your parents' attention.
You want - You don't want the hand-me-down clothes, you know what I mean?
You want to stand out.
You want to be treated special."
In another interview with Oprah, Madonna went into more detail about how her childhood made
her the woman she became as an adult, explaining -
"I'm just a scruffy, tough girl from Michigan who really loves learning and is curious about life."
Madonna's mother died in 1963 of cancer when the artist was 5 years old.
This traumatizing event became something that would define the singer for her entire life.
In an emotional interview for Time, Madonna recalled her mother's illness, revealing -
"I remember feeling stronger than she was.
I was so little and I put my arms around her and I could feel her body underneath me sobbing
and I felt like she was the child.
[...] I think that made me grow up fast."
After her mother died, Madonna turned to her father for comfort - but as one of six children, she was disappointed.
She explained -
"My family was always split up and we had to go stay at relatives'."
Then, her father remarried.
She told Rolling Stone -
"I felt in many ways that my stepmother stole him from me.
I felt deserted."
And so, Madonna developed a thick skin and a fierce independence.
The event also gave Madonna an obsession with death.
She told Interview -
"You never know when death will arrive, so one has to do as much as possible all the
time to get the most out of life."
Madonna eventually became one of the world's most popular stars - but in high school, things were different.
In an interview with Howard Stern, the singer explained that her family moved from the diverse
town of Pontiac to an all-white suburb, recalling -
"I just didn't fit in.
I just felt like I was with rich people, and I wasn't and I felt out of place […] I felt
like a country bumpkin.
And I was resentful."
As a friend of hers told the Independent, Madonna was noticeably different as a teen. They explained -
"She was a cheerleader, so that put her into the jock category.
But she was also a free spirit and a thinker, so that made her more of a freak."
Still, it seems that feeling out of place in high school has haunted Madonna throughout her life.
As she told Harper's Bazaar in 2011 -
"I've always been acutely aware of differences and the way you are supposed to act if you want to be popular."
After graduating from high school, Madonna set off for the bright lights of New York City.
Her ambition?
To become a dancer.
She was influenced by her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, and she went on to study
dance at the University of Michigan for a few years, before dropping out and heading to New York.
She took classes with Martha Graham and lived on friends' sofas.
In an essay for Harper's Bazaar, Madonna explained why she made the move:
"To become a REAL artist.
To be able to express myself in a city of nonconformists.
To revel and shimmy and shake in a world and be surrounded by daring people."
New York wasn't what Madonna expected - she had some traumatizing experiences, but, as
she put it, she was, quote, "hell-bent on surviving."
Her goal, as she told Oprah, was to dance professionally.
She had no idea what was around the corner.
Despite having ambitions to become a dancer, Madonna started to get attention for her singing voice.
In an interview with CNN, she explained -
"People would hear me sing and they'd say, 'Hey, your voice isn't bad.'
And I'd say, 'Oh, really?'
I mean, I never had any training.
I never wanted to be a singer."
Madonna soon teamed up with Camille Barbone, a music producer who eventually became her manager.
As Barbone told the Independent -
"She was living in a hovel in a dangerous part of town.
I wanted to give her a safe haven, because in a lot of ways she seemed wounded."
She soon became like Madonna's surrogate mother and was the first person in the industry who
took her seriously, saying -
"I brought her credibility.
Word got around that someone was investing money in her, someone with a studio and contacts."
After a failed demo, Madonna moved on from Barbone.
Eventually, she created a demo of the song "Everybody," which led to her first deal with Sire Records.
In 1982, she recorded her first single - and the rest is history.
In 1984, Madonna performed "Holiday," one of her earliest songs, on "American Bandstand."
When host Dick Clark interviewed her after the performance, she revealed some ambitious goals.
"What do you hope will happen, not only in 1984 but for the rest of your professional life?
What are your dreams, what's left?"
"To rule the world."
"There you go."
Her next album, "Like a Virgin," brought Madonna a lot closer to world domination.
In fact, even though she clearly had extremely grand ambitions, she was still shocked by her newfound fame.
After spending her early 20s with next to nothing in New York City, Madonna was suddenly
one of the world's most famous pop stars.
As she told The Guardian -
"I remember the first concert I did on the 'Virgin' tour, in Seattle, when everything
became big and I had no way of being prepared for it.
It literally sucked the life out of me, sucked the air out of my lungs when I walked on stage."
In Madonna's entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, she's called "the first female artist to exploit
fully the potential of the music video."
And as Rolling Stone noted -
"Madonna's music videos have spent more than 20 years sparking conversations about fashion,
feminism, sex, religion and what you could and could not show on television."
Madonna's rise to fame coincided with the rise of MTV and the medium of the music video.
At the time, Madonna developed a reputation for creating highly artistic, symbolic videos
that worked as standalone short films.
Not only was Madonna establishing herself as a singer, but she was also proving herself
to be a talented film visionary.
As the director of "Papa Don't Preach" explained to Rolling Stone, Madonna's videos were very much her own creations.
"The strongest thing I came away from was the value of creative freedom, and that she
used that in a very smart way.
She's extremely focused and mature and had a work ethic.
It was a good lesson to me: what to do with absolute, creative power."
In addition to her singing career, Madonna became well-known for her acting work - although
she wasn't always praised for her performances.
As Classic Pop pointed out, Madonna appeared in dozens of films throughout her career.
Her first major leading role was in the 1985 film "Desperately Seeking Susan."
One of Madonna's biggest roles came with the 1996 musical film "Evita," in which she played
Eva, a famous Argentinian actress and political figure.
Not only did the film win Madonna some positive reviews, but it also became a life-changing
project, as she told Roger Ebert -
"Making this movie [...] was such a challenge and such a learning experience.
It was two years of my life, and it was so fulfilling to me as an artist.
It gave me the chance to work on every aspect of my life, of myself, as a creative person."
Since her early days as a dancer and singer in New York City, Madonna has been closely
aligned with the LGBTQ community.
For many queer people, she is a symbol and an icon - and Madonna has always done everything
she can to support the community in return.
Madonna's advocacy for the community dates back to the AIDS crisis in the '80s, which
disproportionately affected the gay community in New York.
She told NME -
"During the AIDS epidemic, I was getting involved with a lot of groups and speaking up and I
was enraged by how I saw people being treated.
I came to the LGBTQ community and put my arms around them."
Madonna's love for the queer community has never faltered.
In 2019, she was awarded the Advocate for Change honor at the GLAAD Media Awards.
In an interview with Today after the ceremony, she said -
"The first person who embraced me and gave me the courage to believe in myself […] was a gay man.
And then when I moved to New York it was the gay community that embraced everything that I did."
Madonna was married to Sean Penn from 1985 to 1989, but their marriage dissolved after
a series of stories regarding Penn's drinking habit and rumors of abuse.
Throughout the marriage, Madonna felt that the world was against them.
She shared with Rolling Stone -
"There were rumors about us getting a divorce a week after the wedding."
In some ways, Madonna found that the public attention is what ruined the marriage, explaining
"I began to realize how important it is to hold on to privacy and keeping things to yourself as much as possible.
It's like a runaway train afterward."
In 2000, Madonna married director Guy Ritchie.
However, the pair divorced in 2008, with CBS reporting that they had struggled to balance work and family.
Madonna's first separation left her feeling stranded and unsure.
In her writing for Harper's Bazaar, she explained -
"I was divorced and looking for love in all the wrong places.
I began to search for meaning and a real sense of purpose in life."
That's when Madonna discovered Kabbalah, which, according to the British Library, is "the
heart of Jewish mysticism."
Delving into this practice marked a turning point for Madonna, as she wrote -
"I was introduced to an ancient wisdom that I could apply to my life in a practical way.
And for once, questions and debate were encouraged.
This was my kind of place."
For Madonna, Kabbalah became a helpful tool for dealing with the pressures of fame and
the challenges of life as an artist.
She told Oprah -
"If things were going great, I was happy.
If someone said something negative about me in the newspapers, I got depressed."
After discovering Kabbalah, Madonna was no longer defined by these things.
In 1996, Madonna had her first child, Lourdes Leon, with her boyfriend at the time, actor Carlos Leon.
Then in 2000, Madonna gave birth to her second child, Rocco Ritchie, who she had with her
then-husband Guy Ritchie.
In the years since, she's adopted several more children: David Banda, Mercy James, and
twins Stella and Esther Ciccone.
When asked about the impact of motherhood during a 2019 interview with Today, Madonna said -
"It's reminded me how precious time is.
First and foremost, [children] teach you to stop being obsessed with yourself, because
they're always there to throw a wrench in the works."
When asked about the possibility of adopting more children, Madonna said -
"Never say never."
In 2019, Madonna released "Madame X," her 14th studio album.
For this album, Madonna took on a new alter ego.
"She's a spy - She's a secret agent.
She travels the world.
She changes her identity."
The persona was born out of a nickname given to her by her old dance teacher, Martha Graham,
and her feeling of changing as she encountered new places and people from around the world.
As Madonna explained to Mojo, the album wasn't exactly planned -
"I was trying to raise money for a film, and then I got bored waiting and then l ended
up making a record."
As Madonna has gotten older, she's become a fierce advocate for older women.
The press, she feels, became more and more ageist over time.
In 2016, she said at the Billboard Women in Music Awards -
"Do not age because to age is a sin. You will be criticized.
You will be vilified and you will definitely not be played on the radio."
Additionally, Madonna told Vogue in 2019 -
"People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another.
[…] Now I'm fighting ageism, now I'm being punished for turning 60."
And as Madonna pointed out to NME, it, quote, "wouldn't happen if she was a man."
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