Alex Rodriguez’s wife Cynthia is blaming Madonna – and Kabbalah – for the demise of her marriage. Cynthia has said she thinks Madonna is using the religion to convince Alex that they are soul mates, and has some sort of “mind control” over him. And while I’d normally laugh at stuff like that, it would absolutely not surprise me at all if Madonna were using Kabbalah for evil instead of good.

Pop icon Madonna is using kabbalah to brainwash Yankee star Alex Rodriguez into believing they are “soulmates,” the ballplayer’s estranged wife is telling friends. While Madonna’s flack has vehemently denied any hanky-panky, insisting the slugger and the singer “are just friends,” Cynthia Rodriguez is convinced otherwise. She has privately insisted to pals that the “Hard Candy” singer beguiled A-Rod by introducing him to the mystical Jewish teachings of kabbalah.

“I feel like Madonna is using mind control over him,” Cynthia Rodriguez told the friend. “I don’t recognize the man he’s become. He was a sweet, beautiful, loving husband and father. Today he’s very cold and calculating.”

“This all started with kabbalah,” said the friend. “Alex told Cynthia that he’d discovered that he’d been looking for his soul mate. And now, he said, he’d found her.”

Three weeks after the birth of their daughter Ella, A-Rod dropped a knee-wobbling bomb on his wife, the friend said. Alex “came to Cynthia and claimed their marriage was over,” the friend said. “That was news to her. She’d had no clue. She said, ‘I was devastated,'” the friend said. “I’ve been with him for 13 years,” she told her friend. “I stood beside him through all his struggles.”

[From the Daily News]

This isn’t the first time A-Rod’s been accused of philandering. He’s often been seen at strip clubs in New York and Vegas. In May 2007 the New York Post published a front page photo of Rodriguez with a Las Vegas stripper at a hotel in Toronto. A month later, Cynthia got a bit of bad publicity for wearing a tank top that said “F#@% You” to a Yankees game. Many thought the shirt was a public response to what was already going on in her marriage.

While I would never, ever defend Madonna, it sounds like the biggest problem is Alex Rodriguez’s attitude towards his marriage. And probably some private things within that marriage. I doubt Madonna has figured out some evil spell to cast on the guy – it sounds like he was looking for an affair, and he probably got one. I met A-Rod a few times when I was a teenager through a relative that had a business relationship with him. This was back when he was playing for the Mariners. He already had a “I’m better than everyone else” attitude about him, which I figured was kind of expected.

In other news related to this debacle, it sounds like Lenny Kravitz really has been a good guy who got a lot of crap for doing a decent thing. The Daily News reports that Cynthia went to Paris on A-Rod’s suggestion – along with the godparents of one of her children – who is also Alex’s trainer – and his wife and their daughter. Kravitz has been out of the country, and played a gig in Belgium last night. He loaned his place to Cynthia as an act of kindness. Many think A-Rod or one of his friends planted the idea in the press – after his suggestion that Cynthia go to Paris to get away from the paparazzi, photographers were already waiting for her at Kravitz’s place when she arrived.

Here’s Alex Rodriguez leaving his Manhattan apartment on his way to the New York Yankees vs. Texas Rangers game on Wednesday. Photographer: A. Miller. Header of A Rod, Cynthia, and their daughter Natasha at FAO Schwarz in NYC for a reading of his book ‘Out of the Ballpark’ on July 20, 2007. Images thanks to WENN.