The Gristle has quit her Gristle-Maker. Page Six and Radar are reporting that Madonna has fired her trainer Tracy Anderson. Here’s the background: Tracy Anderson is a self-proclaimed “trainer to the stars” whose celebrity clients include Gwyneth Paltrow and Molly Sims. Her biggest and most devoted client is Madonna. We can thank Tracy for Madge’s gristle, her burly, veiny arms and her lack of any softness on any part of her body. Something about Tracy’s workout regime “works” – if you want to live on 800 calories a day, while working out two to four hours a day, every day, and be made out of gristle. Something about Tracy doesn’t “work” though – she’s a noted crookwho has been sued six times, jailed once (that we know of), stolen property from her business partners, and defrauded previous clients.

All of that didn’t stopped Madonna from bringing Tracy in as part of her inner circle – Tracy was even been on tour with Madge, helping her maintain her gristle on the road. Tracy got to meet other people in Madge’s inner circle, like Philippe van den Bossche, who ran Madge’s sketchy “charity” foundation Raising Malawi. Under van den Bossche’s leadership, $3.7 million raised for the charity is still unaccounted for, so it makes sense that van den Bossche and Tracy would hit it off. Birds of a feather, et cetera. Just a couple of weeks ago, Page Six announced that Philippe was leaving Raising Malawi to live with Anderson. That turned out to be the final nail in the coffin for Madge:

The troubles keep mounting for Tracy Anderson. The celebrity trainer, who has worked with Gwyneth Paltrow and Molly Simms, has been dropped by Madonna, her most notable client, a source close to the singer tells Page Six.

Madonna herself confirmed she was no longer training with Anderson during an interview on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show last week. Asked by Seacrest whether she had “dropped” Anderson, Madonna simply laughed.

According to our source, “Madonna had grown tired of the baggage that Tracy always seemed to be carrying with her. Tracy had grown to be more of a distraction than anything else.”

Also an issue were photos of Madonna that circulated in July that showed her arms to be grotesquely over-muscular. When Anderson was asked about the pictures on the CBS “Early Show,” she laughed and called Madonna her “most devoted client.”

Things between the Material Girl and Anderson might also have gotten personal. We reported last month that Philippe van den Bossche, the former head of Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity, had quit his post in Los Angeles to move to New York to date Anderson. Van den Bossche was quoted as saying that Madonna was “happy” about his relationship with the trainer. But Madge was said to be disappointed when Anderson wouldn’t travel with her on the final leg of her recent European tour until the very end so she could be with Van den Bossche.

Anderson has been in the news before — in December 2006, she was briefly hauled off to jail for failing to pay a $271.32 bill to a chimney sweep. Reached for comment, Anderson’s publicist says, “This is not true. After working together for three years, Tracy and Madonna mutually parted ways because Tracy wanted to look after her son.”

[From Page Six]

So did Tracy jump or was she pushed? I wouldn’t put it past either Tracy or Madonna to end the relationship in some kind of bitchy, horrible way. Tracy could have ended the relationship because a con artist always has a sixth sense about when someone’s on to them, and when they should get the hell out. Meanwhile, Madge is a pretty smart businesswoman, and maybe she finally came to terms with the fact that Tracy’s involvement in her life was bad for business. It could totally be Page Six’s reason too – that Madge was pissed that Tracy wasn’t at Madge’s beck and call anymore. No one is allowed to have a life beyond the Madge Vadge.

Madonna and Tracy are shown out in London on 3/27/08. Credit: BARM/Fame Pictures