Madonna whose full name is Madonna Louise Ciccone is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She is best known for pushing her limits with her songwriting, music, style, and visuals.
What Is the Net Worth of Madonna?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Madonna has an estimated net worth of $850 million.
Early Life
Madonna was born in Bay City, Michigan on 16 August 1958. Her mother is Madonna Louise and Silvio Anthony “Tony” Ciccone. Her father used to work as an engineer designer for Chrysler and General Motors. Madonna adopted her mother’s name and her family members used to call her “Little Nonnie”.
In 1966, she took on Veronica as a confirmation name after confirming in the Catholic Church. She grew up in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Avon Township (now Rochester Hills). She has 2 elder brothers: Anthony and Martin, and 3 younger siblings named: Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.
On December 1, 1963, her mother died due to breast cancer. Her father got married to the housekeeper of the family named Joan Gustafson in 1966.
The duo had two kids together named Jennifer and Mario. After her father got remarried, she started to rebel against him and that led to friction in their relationship for several years.
Madonna went to St. Frederick’s and St. Andrew’s Catholic Elementary Schools, and West Middle School. She was popular for her high-grade point average and gained a reputation for her different attitude.
In between classes, Madonna used to perform cartwheels and handstands in the hallways, dangle by her knees using monkey bars during the break, and uplift her skirt in class just to show boys her underwear.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Madonna said that during her younger days, she found herself as a “lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn’t rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something.
I didn’t shave my underarms and I didn’t wear make-up as normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades… I wanted to be somebody.”
Her father enrolled her in classical piano lessons, though later she led him to give her permission to get ballet lessons. Her ballet teacher named Christopher Flynn, motivated her to adopt dancing as a career.
Later she went to attend Rochester Adams High School, and she was a straight-A student and a member of the cheerleading squad there. Following her graduation, she got a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan and at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, she continued her studies through the summer.
She dropped college in 1978 and moved to New York City. About her relocation to New York, she said that “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.” In the Alphabet City neighborhood of the East Village, she got an apartment soon.
With a very small amount of money in her hand, she used to work at Dunkin’ Donuts and with modern dance crews, getting lessons at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and apparently, she performed alongside Pearl Lang Dance Theater.
Furthermore, under the training of notable American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, Madonna got trained in dancing. She began working as a backup dancer for some other popular artists. When she was getting back from a rehearsal at night, a couple of men captured her at knifepoint and compelled her to perform fellatio.
Later, she felt the incident to be “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.”
Personal Life
Madonna began dating actor Sean Penn when she was shooting for the second single entitled “Material Girl” music video. In 1985, the couple got married on Madonna’s birthday. In 1989, they divorced.
She welcomed her first daughter in October 1996 with Carlos Leon, a fitness trainer. However, in May 1997, the couple parted ways.
In 1998, Madonna met director Guy Ritchie and she has a son with him whom she welcomed in August 2000. She also adopted her son David from Malawi in 2006. In late 2000, she got married to Ritchie, but after almost eight years of marriage, the couple divorced.
Ritchie gave an amount of up to £50 to 60 million ($66.67-80 million), in their divorce settlement which also had their London pub and residence as well as Wiltshire estate in England. She also adopted twin sisters from Malawi.
Career
She released her first two singles with Sire, titled “Everybody” in 1982 and “Burning Up” in 1983 and both were club hits in the United States. She continued to rise her fame after her eponymous debut album was released in 1983, and after 6 months it ranked number 8 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“Like a Virgin” which is her second album that was released in 1984 became her first number one album, as well as the first album by a female artist who sold more than 5 million copies in the United States.
Madonna released more than 10 studio albums, along with “Like a Prayer”, “Bedtime Stories”, “American Life”, “Hard Candy”, “Rebel Heart”, and “Madame X”. With the sale of over 300 million records across the world, she joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
Chris Nelson from The New York Times remarked that “artists like Madonna and Janet Jackson set new standards for showmanship, with concerts that included not only elaborate costumes and precision-timed pyrotechnics but also highly athletic dancing.
These effects came at the expense of live singing.” On the other hand, Thor Christensen of “The Dallas Morning News” gave remarks that when Madonna became popular for lip-syncing in her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, she has later modified her performances by “stay[ing] mostly still during her toughest singing parts and [leaves] the dance routines to her backup troupe … [r]ather than try to croon and dance up a storm at the same time.”
Apart from her career in music, she also tasted success in her acting, and in fact, her acting made her the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her character in the film titled “Evita” that was released in 1996.
She also featured in several other films among which “Desperately Seeking Susan”, “Dick Tracy”, and “A League of Their Own” are a few. The 2008 documentary titled “I Am Because We Are” was produced and written by her and she also served as the director of the 2008 film “Filth and Wisdom”.
Madonna has also been a successful businesswoman in her industry, “achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry”, and generated sales of more than $1.2 billion in the initial ten years of her career.
As per Gini Gorlinski in the book The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time in 2010, her power levels and control were “unprecedented” when it comes to a woman in the entertainment industry.
She was called “America’s smartest businesswoman … who has moved to the top of her industry and stayed there by constantly reinventing herself” by Professor Colin Barrow from Cranfield School of Management.
Not only this but Madonna was also described as a “dynamic entrepreneur” by London Business School academics; they recognized her perception of success, her knowledge about the music industry, her capability to identify her own performance thresholds, her desire to work harder with the capability to develop as the main factors behind her commercial success.
Morton penned that “Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative, and ruthless—somebody who won’t stop until she gets what she wants—and that’s something you can get at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to her.”
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