February 3rd. Keep that date in mind. That will be the day that Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Rocco Ritchie and their lawyers all meet up in a New York court to hash out the major Teenage Dramz that is Rocco’s custodial arrangement. Until February 3rd rolls around, Team Madge and Team Guy are going to be lobbing insults and planting stories in media outlets far and wide. They’ve already started, because of course they have. For every TMZ plant, there’s an Us Weekly plant. For every Daily Mirror plant, there’s a People Magazine plant. And on and on. This is more about Guy and Madonna than Rocco, I fear.
Anyway, People Magazine’s story today is sort of a recap of what we heard yesterday, that Madge is a slave to her children’s education and she’s going crazy because Rocco is not in school in NYC right now. People’s sources say Rocco still has not returned to NYC and he will not be returning until the February 3rd court date. A source tells People that Rocco has already missed several days of school: “He should have been home already. Madonna is a devoted mother, and a big priority is her children’s education.” My question is still: why can’t Rocco go to school in London? There are plenty of good schools in England, and if he wanted to continue with his Lycée Français education, there’s another Lycée Français school IN LONDON. Meanwhile, the British papers have more dirt (Team Ritchie is working overtime):
His parents are reportedly preparing for a custody fight over his living arrangements. And now as Madonna and Guy Ritchie gear up for court, further details have emerged about 15-year-old Rocco’s alleged fights with his superstar mother. The teen quit Madonna’s Rebel Heart tour a month ago, according to insiders speaking to The Mirror, with the final straw coming as the 57-year-old reportedly took his mobile phone away.
‘Madonna is quite firm with Rocco and she took his phone from him when it interfered with his studies,’ the source claims. ‘She is stricter than Guy and Rocco doesn’t like it. When she took the phone away, it pushed him over the edge.’
Rocco is said to have left the tour a month ago and refused to return to his mother with Guy said to have hired a lawyer in preparation for a legal battle to continue care of his son. The teen is alleged to prefer his ‘normal family life’ with his filmmaker Guy, stepmum Jacqui Ainsley and their three young children, spending weekends at Guy’s Grade II listed Ashcombe House in Wiltshire. An insider told The Sun: ‘When Rocco is in England he gets to live a low-key life. He can go about his business and talk to girls without paparazzi stalking him.’
Meanwhile, friends believe the Material Girl singer – who split from Guy in 2008 – wasn’t pleased when her ex married model Jacqui in August.
‘She was unhappy that Jacqui had cemented her role in Rocco’s affections’, a source told the paper.
As if there was any doubt about this whole thing being absolutely normal teenage drama. The breaking point was about his PHONE!! GOD, MOM. You just don’t understand you don’t get it I hate you I’m going to live with dad he understands me no one will ever understand my pain because my phone is everything to me. As for the Jacqui Ainsley situation… um, I believe it. Jacqui and Rocco seem close. And that probably pisses off Madonna.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
So he ran away because she took his mobile phone away? Poor Rocco. What a hard life 🙂
I know. I’ve been inclined to take M’s side in this all along, but this cements it. Dad’s so cool, he would never TAKE HIS PHONE AWAY AND TELL HIM TO STUDY. I really side eye Guy supporting this teenage drama instead of backing up the mother of his child.
Dad so cool he lets me sit up all night and play guitar.Mum has strict bedtime hours. Oh teenage problems!!
I really side eye a mother forcing a teenage boy to go on tour when he has stated he no longer wants to ,particularly when he could be living with his other parent.
Except, Colette, the point seems to be he didn’t like the strict rules, not the tour per se.
I’m sure Roccos friends in London are also rich and have no rules. Madonna might be a bit too controlling but if Guy is too laid back they are just going to end up with another rich, famous young adult with no ambition, living off this parents and maybe even with a drug problem. That seems to happen a lot with hollywood kids.
Or maybe it was the final straw as the article clearly states?
The gist of everything is that this is normal teenage problems at the root of this. Madonna is too strict, Guy is much easier to live with because he doesnt have strict rules about school , Madonnas too demanding etc.
All this is probably aggravated by Madonnas ego, but at the end of the day this sounds like a normal situation to me. Whats making it a bigger mess then it needs to be is two parents who refuse to co-parent because they have a grievance. Imo.
He should go back to his mother to finish his education. If it was my son and he had a cool step-mother and a dad who let him to anything he wanted, I would be livid, not to mention jealous. I don’t blame Madonna at all. I would be devastated. He just wants to be with the parent who lets him get away with the most.
I don’t know. If being stuck on tour with his mom left him feeling cut off from friends and normalcy, that phone may have felt like his lifeline.
One thing abusers do is cut their victim off from outside sources of support. They want the victim to have no one else but the abuser to rely on. I DON’T think Madonna is abusive, but I do think she is pretty controlling. Taking away his phone may have been her way to erode his ability to resist her control, because it would cut him off from anyone who might sympathize with and support him in resisting.
Yeah, no. Taking away a phone is the only form of punishment parents are allowed to exact these days. But Brat Boy couldn’t handle even that.
Wow. What, in your opinion, is an appropriate response to a child refusing to do his schoolwork?
Or maybe he was just being a headstrong teen who wouldn’t listen to his mom?
He sure has a headstrong mum and equally headstrong dad (speaking of controlling, didn’t Guy like to brag he was wore the trouses in that relationship, he was constantly making it known he was in control) so it wouldnt surprise me if hes inherited a strong will and character himself.
Nothing essentially wrong with that, what teenager doesnt rebel against their mother at some point? i guess i am not so eager to pathologize the situation as some here are. I am sure madonna can be a nightmare but so can teenage boys.
The most abnormal thing i see here is how the parents are handling this. Terrible.
my mother never wanted me to have close ties to anyone else. maybe that isnt the case here but these madonna stories keep bringing up bad memories.
everyone still thinks my mom was lovely. i was never beaten and i was educated but she was manipulative and controlling and it was all about her. ultimately i got away and i stayed away.
Bread and Circuses, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Madge is clearly an egomaniac & hyper-controlling. I’m surprised at the vitriol now being shown about Rocco over this one detail. Madge reminds me of my sister — her attempts to control caused her to create drama out of NOTHING for decades. She marred our family life repeatedly because my parents didn’t realize that what she actually is, is ABUSIVE, and they didn’t handle her in a way that marginalized her. Now both my parents are dead she has marginalized herself (stemming directly from her attempts to control.) She’s now a lonely old & sick woman.
I really admire Rocco for taking a stand.
I think people are ignoring the on tour part. If a kid has a normal schedule goes to school everyday etc and has access to the outside world I do think taking a phone away is an appropriate punishment. HOWEVER if a kid is on a world tour in a foreign country with no access to the outside world, no opportunity to socialize whatsoever it is an extreme punishment. I hate to definively say Madonna is abusive because I don’t know. However having grown up with an emotionally and verbally abusive mother there are some things that are red flags to me. We also have a tendency to elevate mothers to Gods in this culture . If you talk about how abusive your mother is somehow that reflects poorly on you in a way that I don’t think happens if you say you have an abusive father.
Geezus. My mother is controlling and manipulative and 95% of the things that come out of her mouth is a lie. The lying thing i only figured out around 7 years ago, the first 2 things i’ve always known. Everyone thought my mother was wonderful and I was a shit for ever complaining or being upset at her as a child or teen. As an adult, I don’t allow her to affect me, I don’t allow her to manipulate or control me, and I don’t bother to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. With all that, I certainly don’t read Madonna as manipulative, abusive or anything like that.
@pinky
It’s really disgusting to call a minor having trouble with a parent “Brat Boy.” You have no idea what their relationship or his experience is like, and I’m sure it isn’t something that he wants being discussed publicly in the media at all.
Grounding and restricting phone and computer access can be perfectly useful and healthy parenting tools. I would hope that if Madonna was using them fairly and judiciously, her ex wouldn’t support it as a reason to rehash their custody agreement.
On the other hand, many of us have experienced controlling, authoritarian parents who isolate their children as part of a system of emotional abuse. You don’t know that isn’t the case here. So maybe hold off on calling a teenage boy names.
I agree. And for all those defending her, keep in mind she was posting photos and videos of him on Instagram at the same time she was taking away his phone. #nosausage
@meh I stand by my insult.
Actually, taking a 15 year old’s phone away is like a death blow to them, and a heavy-handed power move by the parent. It’s a guaranteed way to alienate the kid since ALL they care about at that age is knowing every move their friends make – ESPECIALLY when the bond with the parent is shaky to begin with.
She could have taken the phone briefly while he studied, or ask if he’d rather go to a different school, or offer him a reward for doing well (NOT MONEY). Motivating is better than punishing. She’s over-controlling a kid who doesn’t like her to begin with.
We don’t know how long she took it away for.We don’t know if she offered rewards. Theres many things here that are unclear. Its possible it was unfair on Rocco but on the other hand i don’t get how its such a bitch move to take away your own kids phone if they aren’t doing their homework.
My sister controls her kids phones and computer access, they aren’t allowed to watch unlimited TV either. Whats controlling in one persons mind may be just be someone who wants the kids to be outside play, focus on school etc. Its probably an outlook on what kind of upbringing and foundation a parent want their kids to have. Every parent is trying to control their childs life to some extent because kids are kids and well parents are adults. So in that respect all parents are controlling. Like i said i have no problems seeing Madonna as difficult, mainly i see her as a hard task master though someone who expects and demands A LOT. She probably has impossibly high standards. And that can be daunting for a child if they aren’t living up to the expectation. Maybe Rocco is not as good in school as Lourdes for instance? Maybe he feels better because his dad doesnt place as much importance on school. There could be many scenarios here in terms of schooling. But i don’t jump to the conclusion that Madonna doesnt want the best for her kids, i certainly don’t think she is a bitch on purpose.
I do agree that at this point in his life Rocco may need his dad more. But they have a custody agreement so this has to be done in a formal way. You can’t just run away and ignore the custody agreement. Here i think Guy could have been wiser and encouraged Rocco to go home until they had found some agreement. It would have saved them all from the embarrassment of making this public.
How can you reward a kid who has access to everything already? He has plenty of free time when it’s not a schoolday. Madonna takes holidays and Rocco was allowed to take his friends with him. His friends can come to Madonna’s parties. He has been pictured doing things with his friends, away from his mother. It’s not like he has to work 24/7 to please his workaholic mother.
What’s the point of disciplining a child or teenager when it’s not effective? You can’t lock a kid inside, you can’t force a kid to do something so the only thing that works in this modern day is taking something away that they like. As a kid, that would be a toy and when they grow up it’s social media. Eh.
Kids will never learn if they are being mollycoddled and as long as it’s not abusive, I say as a parent you need to put your foot down so they realise they can’t do whatever they want.
Nothing in life just comes for free and if he doesn’t want to go into entertainment business, he WILL have to study something or work hard at something to reach his goals in the future. It’s so much easier when a parent learns that to their children from a young age. I work with ADULTS who weren’t parented right (neglected or laissez-faire approach) and they have no discipline. They have to start from 0 and work their way up. Get their highschool diploma, learn how to behave and focus at their/a job. Plenty of ideas but they don’t have the will (or purpose) to execute them. It’s HARD work and I feel sad for them.
Rocco liked her a lot before this. He seems to have traits of both his parents (stubborn and rebellious) but not his mother’s work ethic (more like his dad’s work ethic). Guy was a disaster in school, Madonna was the perfect student.
co-sign with Mira and Artemis. If I had a strong-willed kid who refused to do his schoolwork, I’d take all electronics away until he got it done. I’m a little perplexed by the comments making M out to be some kind of a monster in this scenario. It’s too bad it escalated to this point, but I maintain Guy should have backed her up, and all three should have sat down, perhaps with a mediator, and worked it out.
@tracking It’s because it’s Madonna. People are allowing their feelings about her to dictate their opinions. Taking away a phone or an iPad as punishment is something parents do everyday.
It sounds like a fairly normal punishment but I think the big problem is simply that the parents are refusing to coparent period. In those situations either they never had the same philosophies or they’re allowing their dislike of the other parent to cause a knee jerk opposite reaction. Discipline, especially as a kid gets older, can be hard on even parents trying to work together. It’s much worse when the parents show no respect for the other one. I’ve watched my husband struggle with these issues with his ex. She would do nothing as a punishment and berate him when he punished SS, to the extreme of undermining him in her house by rewarding SS. There is no way that helps the kid. And honestly with totally different philosophies there isn’t always a good way to compromise and the kid does end up with two totally different home environments and dynamics. It’s not surprising when a kid eventually chooses one over the other but it’s sad when the parents make it so obvious that it’s a choice rather than being supportive of the kid having both homes as a safe place.
Some parents think heavy-handedness is the only way to discipline a child. Every kid I knew with parents like that just became deceptive and resentful.
As if that’s it in a nutshell. Please. Can you imagine what it’s like to have a narcissistic control freak for a mother? I’ll bet the reasons she took his phone away are not the same as our regular people parents would have had.
Obviously he is homeschooled some of the time if he joins her on tour so he can be homeschooled in London.
That is one of the worst pictures I have ever seen of a celebrity. In my life. She looks like Madame, that puppet thing-y. Was it Wade and Madame or something? OMG the horror of it all.
She really is clinging onto the gristle for dear life. It is now devolving into desperation, and Norma Desmond territory. I take her life as a cautionary tale of exactly how NOT to live. She had so much, and is still hugely talented, she just can’t seem to move through gracefully. Probably something she is fully aware of, but it must be exhausting always to have to be right, and have the last word on everything.
Me too. I am 43 and aging is hard. When I see Madonna I see her terror at aging and her lack of acceptance as a cautionary tale also. I do feel sorry for her, but than I think of her longstanding reputation for treating people horribly and than it all just looks like karma (and I don’t even really believe in karma).
Wade and Madame is correct. I was thinking she looks like a mishmash of Baby Jane and Norma Desmond, but she does have some Madame going on in that unflattering photo.
wayland flowers and madame
I’ll say it again: Faye Dunaway.
On the Rocco issue, how can she complain he’s not in school in NYC when she has been dragging him around on tour? It’s all about her.
Dear god I know! That picture caused me to forget what we are even talking about on this post. Ahhhh!
The photo is kind a low blow, isn’t it just after she fell in her performance? She actually looks like she’s in pain in the picture. There are others that don’t look so bad-
As far as being stuck on tour with her, I kind of consider it to be like the parents who are into their 4th hour at the mall shopping when their toddler has clearly had enough. In other words, who is she really doing it for?
There was a photo on the DM of Madonna and Rocco with her dressed in what she thought was eccentric and hip. Instead, she looked like Eddie from Absolutely Fabulous.
Yes that was a poorly taken picture. Whoever took that should not be a photographer.
That photo would help pay that photographer’s kids’ college. It was obviously a pap shot and Madge looking that terrible while thinking she looks amazing (until she sees the photo) would get big bucks.
I hope that’s not her main beef. How many divorced women would love for their kid to have a stepmom who is welcoming and encourages the father’s involvement? I lucked out in that department but I’ve seen when that isn’t there. It’s…unpleasant.
Of course he likes the stepmom. She’s a friend now. The first time she even tries to discipline him it’ll be a different story. You’re not my mother will be the first words he’ll utter.
This!
Well, Rocco’s stepmom is only a few years older than he is.
I kid.
But she’s the cool, younger “hip” stepmom, until he looks at her crosseyed or something. Plus she has her three kids to worry about. I suspect that arrangement would grow tiresome for Rocco after a while. He’s a teenage boy, so of course, he’s going to be a bit of a handful.
Joan Ciccone was 23, with already one kid of her own, when she married Madge’s father and became a stepmother of six. They had two more together, nine kids by the time she was 25. M didn’t even have motherhood on her mind until her late 30s. Pretty stark contrast.
Well Madonna did dislike her own stepmother. It’s a weird form of karma that she seems to be getting as she made her stepmom’s life really difficult. We all have issues and Madonna’s began when her mother died. It’s childish and petty but human nevertheless.
I would imagine this Jacqui is quite the opposite of Madonna, plus being the step mom she’s super chill, like Mia4s said above. But isn’t that the risk Madonna took in divorcing her son’s father? Can’t believe she’s willing to air her dirty laundry like this instead of taking the high road. I thought she was smarter!
I’m sure she’s a nice person, she does seem very warm, family-orientated and easy to get along with. I just find it interesting how she dropped her career the minute her and Guy got together. It’s an easy life living with a rich man. She doesn’t have to work at anything besides nurturing her family. It’s simple. Madonna’s life isn’t simple so it’s normal she is more controlling as she has to juggle different things.
And also, and this is not Jacqui’s fault, she is posting photos of her and Guy and Madonna’s kids on her Insta yet Guy hated it when he was involved in Madonna’s circus because of ‘privacy’. It must be painful for Madonna now to witness a woman doing things she was not allowed to do and be called an ’embarassing mom’ int he media when she posts pics of her own child(ren).
But yeah, they’re different women with very different lives. Rocco is lucky with both is mom and stepmom imo.
Agree with all of what you’ve said. It’s just too bad Madonna’s not as enlightened as she wants us to think. Rocco can only benefit from having more people who care about him.
@artemis
She had three kids in like four years. Ofcourse she didn’t have the time to work.
Until now Richie has only had Rocco for the holidays. How can we even know if he is going to want Rocco to be disciplined or not? It’s one thing when you don’t each other so often and it’s all play and fun to every day life. I think Rocco might be a little bit suprised when dad goes to work, his stepmom is tired and has to concentrate on the small ones, and he has to go back to school.
Madonna och Richie has to come up with a plan for Rocco no matter where he is going to live.
@Lotta
No she choose to stop working. She dated Guy for less than a year before she got pregnant in which she barely worked. She was very active before being with Guy. Even right before getting together with him, she landed a big gig.
Her youngest child is over a year old and she seems to be choosing to be a stay-at-home mother.
Well Guy himself has talked about his approach to parenting which is the opposite of Madonna:
“You’ve got to work it out for yourself,” he explained. “What works for me might not work for anyone else. Because everyone told me that to be good at school was important, but for me it wasn’t. So I am anti-school.”
He’s also against “people putting so much pressure on kids and robbing their childhood by giving them so much homework,” he said. “I think if kids want to arse around, then they should.”
Details, 2011
Madonna was married to Guy for almost a decade, I think she knows full well how he parents his kids and he admits himself he isn’t strict at all. Lourdes turned out fine and is studying, I wonder how Rocco will turn out if his laid-back father is going to raise him. Guy himself never had to work really hard as he enjoyed many connections through his father to kickstart his career and then rode on Madonna’s coattails for years branching out into mainstream films. Madonna won’t allow her son an easy ride like that, that’s for sure.
And she talks about her nannies. So she doesn’t work and she has nannies, as in pleural, to help out. She adores Guy, thinks he’s so smart. She even started studying Kabbalah because of him she said and is now studying Hebrew. He can enjoy his children without having to really help out.
Even Lola’s dad admitted he was too lenient with Lola and would let her talk her way out of her curfews but was more the empathetic ear kind of dad, but knew it wasn’t fair to leave it all to Madonna to be the disciplinarian, but he did say Madonna in her private life at home isn’t how people perceive her at all.
I don’t have a problem with Rocco wanting to spend time with dad on a full-time basis, but it sounds like it wasn’t some rational decision, more like came off of a few battles with mom and reacting.
Ultimately, I think it won’t come to a court battle. Rocco will come back to the states for court and there can be time for real conversations face to face and mediation and the parties will work it out. By February, it will be clearer, even to Rocco, if England is where he truly wants to be after two months being there, or if his teenage emotions are all over the place. And if he wants to stay with Dad, then the parents need to come to an agreement on his education, where, how, etc. Since Guy has said he’s anti-education and feels too much importance is placed on it, I get Madonna’s concern, and those fears need to be allayed if he stays with dad, and both parents need to be on the same page educationwise.
What school was he in for the past year while she toured? That’s what I would like to know… please, these kids are “homeschooled.” The only child of hers that went to normal school was Lourdes.
the little kids still go to lycee and as far as i know rocco went to lycee and then calhoun school.
Honestly, cannot fathom what it would be like to be raised by a narcissist like Madonna. She is ALL about Madonna, and has been forever. It would likely be a totally toxic environment for a kid, once he or she was old enough to have an independent thought.
Exactly. Running away from Madonna is the healthiest thing a kid could do. She’s a control freak who wanted to drag her kid around the world with her to trot out as an accessory between songs and simulated sex acts and spanking celebrities. She clearly has no idea what a teen boy needs. He was right to choose the stable family life of his father and step mom. The schooling is exactly the same and he can get into a normal family routine that doesn’t revolve around massaging his mom’s feet after a concert: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/454089574907076783/
and fielding calls from friends and paparazzi about the constant personal images his mom puts up on her instagram of him in his underwear and referencing his “sausage.” She’s just gross, crosses too many boundaries and needs some psychotherapy stat.
I doubt any of this is true. There are three sides to every story.
This is going to play out in the courts and in the end the judge is going to see that Rocco is miserable living the life his mother exposes him to. Living with his father is more of a normal family life. The people are also normal.
Hope Rocco is able to live a life outside of the spotlight away from the media and random strangers thinking dumb things about him.
Teenagers can be a$$holes, can we at least all admit that? (: parenting teenagers, especially in a split home, is hard. There is always going to be the “well at the other house…” I’ve heard time and time again in my own process of my son moving in with his father, that it’s not uncommon at all for sons to switch parents in their teenage years. My guy friends told me that, other friends husbands told me that, in attempts to make me feel better and try and grasp the father son bond.
Now, other partners can be a tricky thing, and I think it’s mindset. I’ve always believed that anyone who loves my kids and whom my kids love back is okay in my book. So as long as their father picks someone who loves my boys for the amazing creatures that they are, all we’ve all gained is one more person in our circle who loves.
However, it’s not always cut like that. Not all parents can put aside their own jealousy, hurt, anger etc to really see it like that.
But in divorce, unless on parent is off the wall crazy/bad, I TRULY believe both parents, mothers and fathers, deserve the right to live and parent the kids if they both want to.
Money, anger, jealousy, proving one right or one wrong so often clouds what I feel are basic guidelines.
I have a kid who outgrew the teenage years but is still an a$$hole. Sometimes they don’t outgrow it.
LOL
Little Darling I always really like your commentary. It sounds like you’ve really been through a lot in your parenting journey and you’ve done it with thoughtfulness and grace. I really admire it.
Wow, that top picture of Madonna is terrifying. Did they use reverse photoshop to make her look worse than usual? They put ten years on her.
Off-topic: Jacqui has really mastered the coy, demure expression with down-cast eyes and a hint of a smile, hasn’t she? It’s totally manufactured, of course.
It’s sounds like its a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.
Madonna probably does have all these crazy rules but at the same time touring the world for a 15 yr old must be exhausting and I can understand the urge to just want to stay in one place maybe have a girlfriend and kick it with your younger siblings.
Madge probably is freaking out cause shes used to always being in control of all of his sh*t. But if she doesn’t want rocco to hate her, and I say this as the daughter of a mom who was controlling and worked a lot, she’ll let it go and let rocco live with his dad for a while. When he’s 23 he will be so excited to get back on tour with her, but right now he just wants to chill.
I suspect neither Jacqui nor his father will take his phone away from him. SMH.
Does Rocco live in the 80′?
I hope he gets to stay and live a life more normal that going on constant tours etc.
Let him live with his father and you get him in the summer. I don’t know his new step mom but I would think its more of a settled lifestyle.
maybe the judge will listen to what he would like to do–shrug
I think Rocco got to the end of his tether over an accumulation of issues that Rocco hasn’t shared with anyone. The media is putting words in everyone’s mouths to over-simplify the situation but think about it….having an aggressive, mouthy, controlling, manipulative, temper-tantrum throwing narcissist like Madonna as your mother, who continues to dress and act like she’s an attention-seeking teenager (grills, bum-flashing, outlandish outfits, barely out of their teens boyfriends) must be appalling. Madonna is all about Madonna, no matter how much she loves her kids, and it’s clearly affected Rocco more than Lourdes. Madonna broke up with Carlos Leon when Lourdes was still a very small child, but I think she thought of him as more of a sperm donor and the separation was discreet and respectful. Although Lourdes appears to spend some quality time with him, Madonna was always the primary parent. Not so much with Guy – their breakup was acrimonious and they’ve been flinging sh*t at each other ever since. That’s gotta create issues with Rocco too so I’m on team Rocco/Guy right now so the kid can just have some stability and normalcy in his so-far insane life.
School or the physical attending of school? The kid was on tour with Madonna for months.
Like Kaiser said, there’s schools in London, even a branch of the NY school.
The kid was on tour with Madonna, away from school and away from whatever friends he had in NY. So his phone was probably his main point of access to his ‘normal’ life while not on tour.
If Madonna is so worried about his schooling, why not just have had him stay in NYC living with the manny she recently fired instead of taking him on the months-long tour? I think she’s now using the schooling reason as an excuse to have him back in NYC if not for his want to stay with her.
OK- trying to remember-the three kids with the new wife are under-what? 6?8? And she’s in her early 30s? So a 15 yr old boy is going to be happy packed off at a grade II home in the English countryside with 3 half-sibs and a step-mom who will then have to actually parent him? The novelty will wear off in about 3 months, and then he’ll be on a plane back to the States. Ah, teenage drama-seen it played out many times, tho not at this income level!!
+1
They live in London. Their country home is hours away. Guy has said the majority of their time is in London.
Ahhhh! This is where I have to kick back and thank my lucky stars that I got to be The Stepmother.
I was allowed to be the cool, fun adult in the equation who never ordered the kids around or took away phones but just cooked wonderful meals, planned fun adventures, let the girls wear my makeup and try on my clothes whenever they wanted (their mother apparently hated this I just found out recently), and…. let their parents do the heavy lifting.
Ahhhhhh!
Of course Rocco prefers his stepmother. Duh. She is probably easygoing as all hell. Easy to do when you are the stepmother– it is sort of part of the job.
I’m a stepmom too and I think it’s a shame that now the media is pitting the stepmom and mom against each other…because that’s not done enough! Hopefully she’s tried to talk Guy into reasonable ways to handle custody issues and give him a different perspective but I’m sure that doesn’t always work out with so many personalities involved.
Guy certainly reveals that he hates Madonna.
I think all of the publicists are leading us around by the nose.
What the hell is normal about Madonna posting a photo of her teenage son on Instagram and talking about his penis size in the caption?
I can think of a lot worse reasons why Rocco would not want to live with her than a damn phone.
You don’t sexualize your children like that. And in front of millions of people.
There was a reply in one of the previous pages that Madonna first posted an instagram of Rocco and the action pic revealed the shape of penis, so Madonna deleted it and posted one without it with the current hashtag.
I imagine that it is rare for anyone to tell Madonna “no”. But it is not rare for teenage boys to want to identify with their fathers, and spend more time with them. It appears that Madge has gotten her ego too wrapped up in this. I’m sure it is hard to see pictures of Rocco looking happy with his father and his other family, but she needs to take a breath. I think she needs to leave space for Rocco to come home when he’s ready, without costing his pride or resorting to court orders.
I highly doubt that Guy married this terrible controlling bitch and then turned around and married Easygoing Young Earth Mother. Jacqui and Madonna probably have way more in common than anyone wants to admit right now.
For me to take my teenage girl’s cell phone away, she would have had to do something TERRIBLE.
Completely over the top reaction to lazy study habits. This is NOT the way to show your child how education is important. All they learn with this punishment is resentment, frustration, and alienation. The consequence needs to match the disobedience.
Furthermore, if Rocco and Madonna were ALREADY fighting, this is just her stuff, her anger. That happens all the time of course, but it is important as a parent to pick your battles and to learn how to say ‘I’m sorry, I overreacted.” Not a lesson I imagine Madonna will ever learn.
After 16 years I can finally keep my girl’s anger from escalating my own anger. When that happens, all is lost. The calmer I stay, the quicker the episode resolves. It is not about me or my childhood or my day at work.
Being a parent is exhausting and there is no roadmap. I try not to judge any other parent if at all possible. But once Madonna ran into that courtroom instead of flying out to London to confront her son herself, she was doomed. What an awful message to send her already alienated son. Since you won’t listen to me, I;ll call the authorities. Surely there were a myriad of other choices.
No one way to do it right and no one way to do it wrong! I agree that it seems like there were probably just a lot of bad choices along the way and I’m guessing that happened on all sides. I think that’s the tough part in divorce – you didn’t get along anyway and now you’re supposed to agree on the hardest job? Sure.
I agree with the posts some people wrote here: even a mother can be emotionally and physically abusive, manipulative and violent. Sometimes it seems to me people believe mothers never hurt their children: this is not the truth. I don’t know how is Madge as a mother, however she can do nothing but let her son bonds with his father, eventually Rocco could come back, but for his own will. To coerce him, it’s the worst mistake.
I sort of get the feeling that everyone involved with this is fine. Madge might be strict, but taking a phone away is within the bounds of ordinary parental punishment. Guys’ been raising his other kids without incident. He’s probably fine too. And Rocco is a kid. It’s only natural he gets along slightly better in one household than the other, and he probably should have some say in where he spends most of his time. Moving closer to his father at this stage doesn’t mean he won’t want to be physically or emotionally close to his mother at some other point in life.
I mostly just think it’s sad these people couldn’t work out something quietly.
This is all just speculation and gossip though. We don’t know if she really took his phone away and we sure don’t know if that’s the reason he left. No one knows anything so the tabloids are scrambling to come up with reasons.
I’m on Madonna’s side on this, he’s being a spoiled brat and if she took away his phone because he wasn’t studying.. then good!
I think phone thing is a convenient lie put out by Madonna’s pr team in advance of a legal hearing. Probably because she is afraid that Rocco may say that he ran away in Stockholm because he was tired of being publicly embarrassed by his mom at her concerts and on her Instagram. account. So much so, that he stopped following his mom but still followed his dad and stepmom on social media and then when Madonna kept messaging him on social media, he deleted his own accounts. This boy doesn’t sound like a spoiled brat, he sounds like a kid who is freaked out by his controlling stalker mom. And I say this as a mom of a 15yr old boy.
I’ve never taken away the phone away, but I sure as hell have reminded them who’s been paying for it for the last umpteen years –
Anyone who knows anything about psychology and child development knows that at a certain point (like puberty) male children have a healthy developmental need to separate from their mother and desire to identify with their father. It is healthy, natural and normal. Of course 15 year olds can be bratty, that is also natural and normal. Of course teenagers hate having their phone taken away, it is their social connection to their peers and the outside world. Of course it appears that Madonna has great love for her son, but if Madonna wasn’t so self-absorbed she would understand her son’s natural desire to separate from her at this point and spend more time living with his father now. If his father is a good parent and has a stable home life this is a good thing. Madonna is in a power play at this point and is used to getting what she wants when she wants it. She may be ruining her furtre relationship with her son at this point. Madonna appears to me to be a narcissistic bully. I am also sick of seeing her pathetic attempt to appear sexually desirable and attempt to compete with women who are younger and naturally “sexier” than her. She refuses to grow old gracefully. Whenever I see her pictures and read about her tours and personal life I just cringe.
Why is David never mentioned? He is also their child – where is he in all this?
This is what i wonder too. So many people in this thread are suggesting Madonna is a bad mother. If that is the case how is it possible that Guy only worries and want primary custody of one of his sons? This doesnt make sense .
Just look at this picture https://www.instagram.com/p/6QfEoGiRLC/?taken-by=guyritchie that’s david’s hands right there.
Jacqui doesn’t think she’s a horrible mother. She said in an interview sometime after her wedding that Madonna and Guy have done a wonderful job of raising David and Rocco because they are great kids.
I think this all goes back way longer than just taking his phone away, Madonna has been humiliating him quite a bit lately on social media in the name of fun, according to comments on another gossip site she posted a picture of him showing his privates, he made her take it down and then she hashtagged it #no sausage, posing him in pigtails and making passive aggressive comments that could make fans believe he is gay, which she would love, but he is not.
This sudden turning of the worm is just the tip of a volcano that has been building up for months if not years. The handling of this whole episode is just bad parenting by Madonna it could have been handled so much better if she hadn’t put her ego first and caused Rocco to be dragged through the media by forcing this into court. She is digging her own grave in this relationship with her recent actions. BTW apparently David has been the butt of her social media jokes as well but not the girls , interesting no! She really needs to shut that down , teasing them at home is one thing but humiliating your children in front of the whole world just spells total self obsessed b**ch.
Taking his phone away while he way already away on tour with her must have left him feeling very isolated.
Has anyone considered that Madonna’s involvement with the Kabbalah Center may have something to do with this current drama? I say this because just over a month ago, Madonna’s Kabbalah Center teacher Yehuda Berg was found guilty by a civil court of sexually molesting and threatening to kill a student and had to pay up damages. Look it up, it was all over the tabloids then. Madge and Guy were often pictured with that Berg dude when they were married. After they split up, I think Guy wasn’t so into it. Maybe Guy has a problem with Madonna being a part of the Kabbalah Center and dragging his son into it, especially in light of what happened with Yehuda Berg quite recently. Maybe Rocco wasn’t happy about being part of it. And then being forced to go on tour with her, maybe it was all too much for him (being forced to do all these things that are not normal for other 15 year olds). And maybe Guy’s taking Rocco’s decision as an opportunity to get custody of his son to get him away from Madonna’s cult…
Guy is still into Kabbalah. Jacqui has recently said in an interview because of Guy’s interest in Kabbalah, she began studying Kabbalah when they became involved, and is also now taking Hebrew classes.