Life with My Sister Madonna (34 page)

On the landing in front of the stained-glass bay window, Madonna joins Guy, who is wearing a green Shetland-tweed jacket, green tie, green and diamond antique cuff links, which, I later learn, are a gift from Madonna, white cotton shirt, and a kilt that someone explains to me is in the plaid of the Mackintosh clan. Rocco, snuggling in his nanny's arms, is dressed in a kilt made from identical fabric.

Guy and Madonna exchange diamond wedding rings. Then, in front of a female pastor, they speak the vows they've written themselves. I wish I could hear them, but the ceremony is so far from where we are all sitting that although we can hear Katia play “Nessun Dorma,” and Bach's “Toccata and Fugue,” none of us can make out a single word of the vows. Déjà vu—Sean and Madonna's wedding all over again. Although perhaps Sean isn't looking like such a bad choice of brother-in-law anymore.

After fifteen minutes the ceremony ends. The wedding party descends the staircase and we all congratulate them. We sip champagne, then Madonna and Guy go up to their rooms to change. After a short while, Madonna emerges in a Gaultier dress, and Guy in a blue suit.

 

A
T EIGHT, WE
all come back to the Great Hall, where a bagpiper pipes us into dinner. Tonight there is no long table, but rather seven round tables. Madonna and Gwyneth and Guy are at the front table, along with Sting and Trudie and Donatella. My parents are at a side table with Joe and Paula and Melanie.

Perhaps as a direct result of my toast, I have been allocated a seat at the back of the room, sitting with my back to the bride's table. I'm not surprised because, after all, I've been a bad boy. Alek Keshishian is sitting at my right and spends most of the dinner—salmon and mussels, Scottish beef, roast potatoes, cabbage, and the Scottish national dish, haggis—bitching that he isn't sitting with Madonna, which irritates me to no end.

The best man, nightclub owner Piers Adam, stands up to give his toast. Behind him, a screen features images of Guy as a baby, Guy as a schoolboy, and even Guy in a dress. One picture shows Guy as a child, lying across a black dog, with his hand near the dog's penis. Piers Adams points at it. “You see, Guy was a poofter early on,” he chortles, really pleased with himself.

I restrain myself from getting up and throwing a plate at him.

I glance at my sister, hoping to see a look of outrage on her face, but there is none. And I am sad that Madonna, whose early success was built on her legions of gay fans, can listen to these antigay comments without protesting. I feel even sadder that she is now married to a man who seems so insecure in his masculinity that he thrives on homophobia, and his friends know it.

I leave the dinner, go upstairs, and fall asleep. I wake up at around two in the morning and go downstairs to get something to eat. I hear music coming from the castle's cellars and take a look. A big party is going on, and everyone is dancing. Among them, Madonna's maid from America. While a very nice gesture that she paid her maid's way, it is almost beyond my comprehension that Madonna categorically refused to pay for our sister Paula to fly to Scotland as well. In the morning, we all pile into the bus taking us to the airport and we fly back to London. I breathe a sigh of relief. I've served my time at Skibo and it's over.

Madonna, at least, enjoyed her wedding. She later said, “It was a truly magical experience. It was very personal and very intimate.” And she makes a conciliatory gesture toward me, suggesting that I stay at her Holland Park home on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas Day join her and Guy at Sting and Trudie's fifty-two-acre Wiltshire estate, where the newlyweds are spending their honeymoon.

Once I get there, the honeymooners naturally keep to themselves, and I hang out with Trudie and Sting. After the disappointment of the wedding, it's nice to be with friends, however new.

At dusk, Sting and I walk around the property together. He and Trudie keep sheep and they run everywhere. There is also a little lake with an island in the middle, with a large tree growing on it. Sting tells me a story about a girl who died out there. According to him, at certain times of the year you can still see her ghost, dressed in a white gown, sitting on a chair, gazing out over the lake. The property is unmodernized, beautiful, and for that evening I feel as if I have gone back in time.

But even the serene surroundings and the kindness Sting and Trudie both show me don't eradicate the unhappy memories of my week in Scotland. And when I arrive back home in America again, open my mail, and find an invitation to join Skibo's exclusive private members' club, I don't, for one second, consider accepting it.

I
BEGIN
2001
feeling positive and happy. But in March, I make the chilling discovery that Madonna is going on the road again on her forty-eight-city
Drowned World
tour, but isn't hiring me to direct it. Perhaps as retaliation for my wedding toast and the disdain I have demonstrated for her new husband, she has hired another director, Jamie King, instead. I get the news from Caresse. I email Madonna about it and her reply is that she feels that—because of my drug taking—I have become unreliable. I immediately write back telling her in no uncertain terms that my drug use is recreational and that I have never allowed it to interfere with my work.

Although she doesn't retract her accusation and clearly still believes all the rumors about me, a few weeks later she writes inviting me to sit in on one of the rehearsals. In the same letter, she tells me that she, Guy, and the children are now eating a macrobiotic diet—no meat, chicken, bread, sugar, dairy, or alcohol—prepared by a French macrobiotic cook. She also invites me to come to a Kabbalah class.

Although I am slightly intrigued by Kabbalah, I decline. But I do accept Madonna's invitation to attend the
Drowned World
rehearsal. In an irony that feels decidedly bitter to me, rehearsals are being held at Sony Studios in Culver City, where—just eight years before—we rehearsed
The Girlie Show.

When I arrive at the stage door, the first thing I see is Jamie King's brand-new black Mercedes. Only recently, he was driving a late American model. I can only surmise that Madonna is paying him a fortune to direct
Drowned World,
certainly much more than she paid me, and this rankles with me.

I go inside and watch the “Ray of Light” segment, in which Madonna sings three songs. She is wearing a kimono with fifty-foot-long arms. Despite her commitment to Kabbalah, the overall vibe is angry, violent, and not fun to watch.

I don't want to sound unsupportive, so I say a few constructive things. Then, referring to a scene in which she is supposed to be momentarily submissive, I suggest to Jamie that she look down first, as it will then make more of a dramatic impact if after that she looks up.

He snaps, “We want to do it our way.”

I don't react.

Later, I mention my suggestion to Madonna. She gives no response. But later on, when I go to the dress rehearsal, I see that she has followed my suggestion.

 

N
OW THAT
M
ADONNA
and Guy are married, she puts the Los Feliz home on the market, sells Coconut Grove, and makes an offer on a new house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, which belongs to Diane Keaton.

At the moment I am still designing the new L.A. restaurant Central—still unpaid—and I am broke. So I ask Madonna if I can design the house for her.

Caresse has recently told me that Madonna was shocked when she received David Collins's bill. Until then, she had no idea what kind of fees designers routinely charge. Now, however, she understands how low my fee really is. She's ready for me to work for her again. As she knows my situation, she haggles over my rate. I have no choice but to settle for a low rate, and she agrees to hire me.

She pays $6.5 million for the house, which was designed by architect Wallace Neff. Before the sale closes, we go to look at the house together. It's north of Sunset, an odd Spanish Mediterranean house with no wall around it and no gate. The yard is full of big agave plants and cacti, with huge six-inch spikes growing out of them, and lavender is everywhere.

Diane still hasn't moved out of the house, but isn't there today. Her children's toys are by the pool, all lined up in perfect order according to size.

Madonna and I exchange glances.

“Why are they lined up like that? And how can the kids play in the yard without stabbing themselves on the cacti?” she says.

The first thing I do is get rid of the cacti. The backyard is dug up, and underneath the lavender we discover a great many rats and immediately have them exterminated.

Before I start work on the interior, Madonna takes me aside and says, “You know, Christopher, I've got kids now and a husband, and you are going to have to design the house for the kids and to deal with my husband as well.”

I tell her it won't be a big deal, but I am wrong.

In theory, decorating Roxbury should be easy. The only construction required is changing the bathroom upstairs so it suits Madonna, building a closet for Guy, and enlarging the pool. The rest of the job really only involves moving furniture from Castillo del Lago into the new house.

However, Guy's closet turns out to be a massive enterprise, particularly as it involves my dealing with Guy directly.

We meet at the house and he tells me what he wants.

“Nothing mincey, mate. Nothing twee,” he says.

I stop myself from knocking his front teeth in.

He tells me that the closet must be six feet long and five feet wide, with hanging space just so, drawers of only one kind, and—most important of all—a glass case for his cuff links and watches. The case, he says, must be lined in red velvet, with lights, so he can see his cuff links and watches displayed there.

It has to be made out of dark wood; the grain must match and run from left to right.

Through it all, he addresses me as “Chris,” even though he knows I prefer Christopher. He is lordly, not in the least bit friendly—as if I am just another employee and not his brother-in-law.

Madonna, too, treats me as if I am nothing other than a serf paid to decorate her home. In the past, I researched fabric and furniture for her, narrowed the choice down to three samples of fabric, or three types of chairs, and brought her the samples and the photographs so she could pick which she wanted.

Now, though, she says three samples are not enough. She instructs me to bring her at least ten samples, photographs of at least ten types of chairs, and so on. And when I do, she says, she will then confer with Guy regarding the right choice.

Up till now, I have designed eight of her homes and she has always trusted me implicitly. Not anymore. I show her five samples of paint color and suggest the appropriate one for the house, but she ignores me and asks to see more.

If she does agree on a color, the following morning she will come back to the house and tell me, “Guy doesn't like that color, so we have to pick another one.”

I sense that her obstinacy stems from a deep desire to please Guy, and that he is secretly working to edge me out of every aspect of her life.

When it comes to selecting the wood for his closet, he is hands-on. I show him twelve samples and he tells me that they all look “twee.” He uses the word over and over, and I get the message: I am gay and he doesn't want the house to reflect my sexuality, which is hardly likely.

Perhaps to safeguard the entire interior of the house from becoming contaminated by my homosexuality, he has his assistant decorate his office, at the back of the yard. A large picture of the queen is hung on the gray wall above his desk, along with an enormous white leather sofa and filing cabinets.

Meanwhile, Madonna and I argue over fabrics and textures. We argue over the slightest little detail—a doorknob, a light switch. We've never argued over such details before, and I feel as if I am falling into a strange, dark hole. I am angry and bitter.

Finally, this seemingly never-ending job is at last completed, and I go over to the house to meet Madonna and together assess the finished interior.

When I arrive, she is alone, but Guy is to come home and pick her up. We then stand in the driveway, talking about the house for a few hours. She is facing me and I am facing the front gate.

The gate opens. Guy drives up in Madonna's black Mercedes. She doesn't turn around. Guy drives in my direction and when he is about a foot away, he veers the car away, just missing my foot.

I neither flinch nor move from my position in the driveway.

He stops the car, rolls down the window, and says, “Are you trying to prove a point?”

I say, “No, but I think you must be.”

He rolls up the window and drives into the garage.

Madonna turns to me. “What just happened?”

I say, “I don't want to talk about it,” and leave.

 

I
N
A
PRIL
2001, the London
Sunday Times
names Madonna and Guy Ritchie as number six on their list of Britain's richest people, citing their joint fortune as $260 million. When the
Drowned World
tour tickets go on sale at London's Earls Court, sixteen thousand are sold out in fifteen minutes, and eighty thousand tickets for five extra dates are sold out in only six hours. In the United States, one hundred thousand tickets for the show will be sold out in just a few hours.

The
Drowned World
tour will become
Billboard
's number one Top Ten Concert Grosses, for five concerts at Madison Square Garden with sold-out crowds of 79,401 and gross sales of $9,297,105. When
Madonna Live! Drowned World Tour
is broadcast live on HBO from the Palace of Auburn Hills, it is seen by 5.7 million viewers and is the network's third-highest-rated prime-time concert special since 1997.

Microsoft announces that it has licensed “Ray of Light” for $15 million as the official theme song in their advertising campaign for Microsoft Windows XP.

The Immaculate Collection
is certified as having sold 10 million copies and will become the all-time bestselling greatest-hits album ever made by a female artist.

The
Drowned World
tour grosses $74 million.

Madonna is named Britain's highest-earning woman with an annual income of £30 million—$43.8 million.

 

M
Y WORK ON
the Roxbury house is now completed. I wait for my last payment, which is around $10,000. I can really use the money, so when it doesn't arrive, I call Caresse and ask where it is.

She stalls.

Within moments, she calls back again. “Okay, Madonna will pay you the final payment just as long as you agree to go to Kabbalah. The next meeting is at my house on Wednesday.”

I tell her I'll think about it and hang up.

That same afternoon, Caresse messengers over
The Power of Kabbalah—Technology for the Soul
by Yehuda Berg, which is an official publication of the Kabbalah Centre International. On the cover, there is a quote from Madonna: “No hocus-pocus here. Nothing to do with religious dogma. The ideas in this book are earth-shattering and yet so simple.”

I read the book and learn about Kabbalah, a power that has been around for the past two thousand years, which has influenced the world's leading scientific, philosophical, and spiritual minds throughout history. A mix of Judaism, Buddhism, Catholicism, and a bit of old-fashioned common sense thrown in for good measure, Kabbalah immediately interests me. As I study the book, I begin to think about spiritual issues I've long stopped pondering, and I am curious. I also realize that I've bought into the L.A. scene far too much and for far too long. Besides, I know that my connection with my sister has weakened and feel that attending Kabbalah may strengthen it once more.

The following Wednesday, I attend a meeting at Caresse's house on Sunset Plaza. A two-story colonial brick house, nicely landscaped, on an expensive street. She's only Madonna's assistant. I can hardly pay my rent. I push all bitterness aside and join the meeting.

Inside are Madonna, her real estate broker, her masseuse, her costume designer, her choreographer, two assistants, her acupuncturist, and her two dancers. Clearly, she's involved everybody in her life with Kabbalah. The edict that you have to belong in order to work for her hasn't yet been formalized, but I suspect it will soon be. I also know that since Kabbalah has become so integral to her existence, she sees less of people who aren't involved in it.

We all sit down in a big circle. This meeting—and all that follow—has a particular topic, which Eitan, our teacher, teaches, then we all discuss it. The meeting lasts a couple of hours. Caresse serves crackers and other snacks.

Most of the time, I attend meetings at Demi's, Caresse's, or Madonna's, and on some Friday nights I go to the L.A. Kabbalah Center for Shabbat. There, I am not surprised to find that Madonna and Guy are treated like the uncrowned king and queen of Kabbalah. One of the basic premises of Kabbalah is that no individual is entitled to anything more than he or she has earned, yet every time I attend Shabbat at the center, Madonna and Guy sit on either side of the Bergs, who founded the modern Kabbalah movement.

“I've been coming here for fifteen years, and I've never gotten to sit next to the Bergs,” I hear one woman complaining.

Kabbalah teaches the antithesis of envy, yet I can feel the envy rippling through the center, particularly when Guy, dressed in white robes, is regularly given the honor of carrying the Torah up to the altar.