For weeks now, media outlets have been detailing the various ways Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour has gone off the rails, everything from claims of on-stage drunkenness to turning up hours late to shows to sexually assaulting teenagers on stage. The Sad Clown part of the show seems particularly disturbing, especially as Madonna uses the Sad Clown part to complain about how no one is taking care of her, and won’t someone take care of her? It’s been assumed this whole time that Madonna’s on-stage theatrics have something to do with Rocco Ritchie and his insistence that he would rather live with his father. But what if there’s something else going on? After cozying up to Madonna for months, it seems like her ex-husband Sean Penn has left her in the lurch and moved on with a young blonde.
Is there a new woman in Sean Penn’s life? The Gunman actor was spotted kissing a 20-something mystery blonde while on a romantic date night in Chicago on Sunday.
“He came in with no reservation so he was not pretentious or trying to set it up or making sure he was incognito – he literally walked right in,” a source tells PEOPLE.
Penn’s companion, “a beautiful young blonde in her 20s,” sat with the actor “in plain sight over in the window seat,” which the source notes “looks out onto the Chicago River, so it’s a pretty romantic view.” The pair ordered cocktails before dinner, which consisted of “oysters, a sea bass and a steak, and then they both had dessert and hot tea.” Throughout the meal, the source notes, “they were very romantic with one another.”
After finishing dinner, Penn posed for a photograph with the restaurant’s hostess, and when diners started asking for their own pictures, Penn and his date “dashed out the door.”
While Sean Penn romancing a 20-something blonde isn’t really that newsworthy in general, when you put it in the Madonna context, it does make me wonder if there’s something there. The Daily Mail even said as much, writing: “This could be another reason that the Material Girl – whose is depressed son Rocco has moved to London to with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie – has been cracking up on stage lately.” It was just last December when Madonna issued a statement on Penn’s behalf, claiming that contrary to widespread reports decades earlier, Penn had never struck her or assaulted her. Penn and Madonna also cozied up to each other at his annual Haiti fundraiser in January, and Madonna told him she loved him ON STAGE at the fundraiser. So what do you think? Is Madonna’s breakdown about Rocco or about Sean Penn… or both?
PS… A judge in the UK has just ruled that Rocco’s custody case should be dealt with in New York, not the UK. Just FYI.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Well it’s not like when he allegedly hit her, he knocked any sense into her.
I don’t think Madonna wants Sean Penn back. I don’t think Sean Penn wants Madonna back. They both date significantly younger people because they like having the power in a relationship.
I think she went off the side because of Rocco. I bet she will shape up now that custody trials have moved to NY.
Am I the only one who got the feeling after reading that the judge thinks that the trial should be in New York is because the judge is annoyed by them. Hahaha can you imagine being that annoying
@oil, I think the judge is annoyed and hopes that moving this to NY will help Madonna and Guy work for the best interest of their son.
I think Madonna would let Rocco live in London if Guy would agree to some of the rules that she has. Of the two of them, I believe Guy Ritchie is less flexible.
@ Denismich
I think Madonna would let Rocco live in London if Guy would agree to some of the rules that she has. Of the two of them, I believe Guy Ritchie is less flexible.
Would you say this to Katie Holmes?
If Katie would just raise Suri by some of Tom’s Scientology rules.
Madonna is a control freak and an extremist (food, exercise, religious beliefs, clothing choices, behavior: both on and off stage,, language, whom she dates, plastic surgery, nudity, how she puts her business on social media) Just which of those rules should he compromise on? I think they both love their son and both are doing what they think is best for him.
There is a legal reason for the child custody case to be heard in NY. NY is where Rocco legally lived and went to school. He vacations in England. The English judge was right remanding the case back to NY.
Guy hurt Madonna by talking 1/2 of her wealth in the divorce after publicly saying he doesnt want her $ or alimony. If Rocco moves to London, then Madonna will have to pay child support and who knows how high that bill will be. I know many men that get killed financially in the divorce and then balk at paying their ex another large sum for education and other expenses. Maybe this is what Madonna is feeling. Plus Sean moving on must hurt a bit after her public decoration of love. I hope she realized that Sean is worse person now than when they were married. She dodged a bullet. She could be going to through menopause which has many emotional lows on top of all of the other bullshit. She is on tour and unable to really deal with the situations. Tour life is not a good life.
Oli, that was funny.
Thank you. By the way does anybody else have trouble with auto correct every time I type something in the email thing it messes up my email it put oil originally, and I didn’t even notice until after I posted. So annoying I hate autocorrect, you know until I need it
I too always thought this had something to do with Sean Penn. “Won’t anybody f**k me?” That woman is needy X 1,000. No wonder all the men in her life run. She needs to fix that part of her if she wants doesn’t want to grow old alone.
Exactly. That’s not a line one says about their teenage son….at least I hope it isn’t. She’s an idiot. But at the end of the day, I think it is all about Madonna. It isn’t about Guy or Rocco or Sean. It is about Madonna. Everything with her is about herself.
When an extreme narcissist doesn’t get their own way, they go all unhinged.
Madonna’s breakdown is about Madonna.
Yes I think so too. People aren’t doing what she wants – I mean, it is widely said she is a control freak – and so she’s losing it.
@Snazzy Or she is faking, who knows, her acting is so bad.
That’s exactly what I think. She is used to getting her way. Plus, I’m sure she misses her son.
The boy is old enough to make his own decision about which parent to live with, unless that parent is unfit in some way, which as far as I know Ritchie Is not. And she’s a big girl, she needs to take responsibility for her own actions.
Yes she is making it too obvious why he wants to stay with his dad. Get it together Madge as you still have more children to care for!
She is losing it because she cannot control everything. Between the Rocco situation, her mess of concerts over in Australia and did you guys see yesterdays NY Post? The documentary Strike a Pose that debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival does not paint her well.
A control freak who surrounds herself with a certain type-young, naive with emotional baggage. How she will take you in like family and give you the world, but if you disagree with her, cross her, you are dead to her. This is with everyone, dancers, trainers, nannies, assistants, chefs. And forget it if you are more talented or could possible be better than her, she will make sure you are done.
I don’t think that she can handle the fact that she is no longer relevant.
LOL! I think this is more the case than her son or Sean. Well, maybe her son a little bit.
I can tell from the comments that many people on this site have never raised a teenage. Teenagers are very difficult. They are moody and just breathing embarrasses them. All a parent can do is wait and pray that some day they will be an adult. The more you fight them, the more they rebel. If Madonna would tone it down wait patiently, her son would return to her on his own. This public display will drive him father and father away. Stop blaming his father. You can’t make a teenage turn against another parent ( a younger child- maybe). If Rocco wants to be with Madonna, he will. Nothing his father can say or do will stop him. I can’t imagine the pain Madonna must be feeling. She needs to get advice from a child psychologist. All of this crying, drunken outburst, plastering his picture on social media, dressing like a clown and singing sad songs will do nothing but drive him from her forever> I had a difficult daughter who at the age of 28 still behaves and responds like a 15 year old. I know her pain
I think most of us who comment on how disgraceful she’s acting can see this situation for what it is. Yes, teenagers can be difficult, but you nor anyone else parades these difficulties in the press, and in front of her audience. That’s unacceptable. Why would you do that to someone you’re supposed to protect?
People have been saying that since the early 90s!
She was filler for Sean Penn because she adores him and he needed her for his lawsuit.
It’s sad that she got up on that stage at his charity and said she had always loved him, when everyone in the room knew it was one-sided. And I guarantee Sean was on Guy’s side about the boy living with his father. I remember his interview where he kept bragging how his son wanted to live with him and he dissed the mother as not really being around. Then it came back to bite him later when his son went back to live with Robin. LOL
I still can’t believe that Penn has such a hold on her. Another reason to believe she’s still stuck in the cycle of abuse. I don’t even understand why she falls so hard for such douches and does everything for them (even toning down her image) but her boyfriends always tend to be these sweet lowkey non-white men who she controls and dumps for the most stupid reasons.
And this goes back all the way to her early days. But she claims to be all about ‘love’. I don’t know if she truly knows the meaning as only the biggest bullies get her full attention.
What a gross guy he is: Robin not being around? She basically raised those kids by herself, their daughter said it herself, that he wasn’t around much. The divorce basically forced him to spend time with his kids, while Robin came back to rebuilt her career. And it was worth it: she’s getting critical acclaim as an actress AND director on House of Cards. Also she’s doing crazy money, she’s an Excec Producer too. He instead has done The Gunman (LOL) and his last good role was like 8 years ago
@Jayna I remember an interview Penn did about Hopper living with him after his accident. He said the boy was difficult. Wright started house of cards in another state but Hopper wanted to stay in California. I missed the bragging part.
@FingerBinger, I don’t remember where I remember reading that. Maybe I’m misremembering it that way, bragging. He was so bitter about Robin, saying his marriage was a fraud, and he was never loved, etc, that maybe I blended that in with every hateful thing he said about Robin.
What I found was this. He doesn’t say what I remembered, so maybe I was wrong.. But the way he says “his mother came back into his life” was odd, like he was saying she hadn’t been involved with Hopper at all when he had Hopper. Who knows? Maybe she wasn’t.
“Haiti was an accident. I had been single-parenting my son. I had cleared my slate to do so because I thought I might be single-parenting him through two years of high school. After eight months of that his mother came back into his life, wanted to spend time with him, he with her, and I found myself with a year and four months uncommitted. And four days later the earthquake happened. I went down there to spend two weeks and I saw I could do more and I stayed. Also, my son had had a traumatic brain injury, in that eight-month period [Hopper came off a skateboard]. He was fully recovered by the time he went to see his mother and he’s 100 per cent today but he almost died.”
I hate how nobody calls out how Penn plays with the pap ops just like any other attention whore. It’s obvious, by the way it’s described that he and that bimbo sat by the window and started a gross PDA, that he WANTED to be noticed, like desperately. He did the same when he was dating Theron and he strolled her in front of the paps, like we know by now in LA if a celeb wants to be seen they know how, where and when to show up. Anyway, why was he staging this gross display with the blonde? What is he doing in Chicago? Oh ! wait, Charlize is in Chicago filming…what a coincidence. He is gross and so desperate and people continue to buy his BS. He did the same when he was dumped by Robin Wright.
No Madonna’s problems are about herself. She was never back together with Sean. They were just cozying up for the publicity and Sean needed her to back him in his Lee Daniels lawsuit.
Charlize is filming in Chicago so I hope the pretty young blonde isn’t her. One time they reported on Sean with a young blonde and it turned out to be her. I think Charlize is too smart to get back with him hopefully especially after that El Chapo thing. I heard Charlize has a new man anyway. Cannes will be interesting because the movie Sean directed Charlize in is going there. Wonder if she attends.
i remember that story about Penn sneaking into an hotel elevator with some blonde young woman. It was a National Enquirer cheap story. How on earth an A-lister like Charlize denies a NE story by having her PR calling The New York Post? Someone who’s doing damage control not not look like the cheated girlfriend I guess. Penn will never change: its all about screwing and breaking down strong women, that’s his thrill.
No I believe that was a mistake and the girl was Charlize. I just hope the girl is not Charlize in this case since she is filming in Chicago.
I don’t believe she’s having a breakdown at all. Her image has been carefully crafted for over thirty years. Love her or hate her, she is the master at branding. The public has never seen anything other than the image she is trying to project.
I don’t buy the breakdown either. I think the clown thing was some sort of performance experiment and the rest is a bunch of over-exaggeration. It seems that people are still entertained by her shows. Being late, though, that’s just horribly rude and needs to stop.
I was thinking that, until I read an article yesterday about the movie Strike A Pose, it is a documentary by the dancers from her Blond Ambition Tour and the movie Truth or Dare. She is not painted in a good light. And the one thing that she does not know how to handle is what to do about Rocco. In the past if someone crossed her or did not agree with her she would fire them and then ruin them. But she cannot do this with Rocco, because she also has the image of having it all, in her mind she is the best working mom. Except now her son doesn’t want to be with her. She can’t ice him out or fire him because he is her son. She can’t discredit him like her brother or other relatives, because he is her son. She cannot risk being thought of as a bad mom.
So she doesn’t know what to do. She went after Guy a bit and it backfired. So I think she is losing it a little bit. She is in territory she has not been in for the majority of her life. She finally has a situation she cannot control and manipulate and she doesn’t know what to do.
Madonna has many walls. The death of her mother turned her world upside down and is the main reason for her extreme drive, ambition, self-sufficiency and control issues. She admitted to this herself. She also admitted that if she could trade in the fame for anything, it would be to get her mother back.
Knowing this, it makes sense that she sees people as replaceable as she can never get the love from her yes-people as she had from her mother. The ONLY people that have come close enough to Madonna to understand who she really is, are her two ex-husbands, some members of her team (Guy Oseary, Liz Rosenberg) and a few select others. Her children are the only people on this planet she loves unconditionally, parenting and motherhood have been themes throughout her music and it’s evident in her interviews. And as far as narcissism goes, a lot of far less successful and ambitious parents project some of their own issues onto their children so I don’t fault Madonna for seeing her children as extensions of herself.
So far Lourdes has plenty of freedom and is one of the most well-adjusted low-profile educated celebrity offspring who loves her mother (she got tattoos for her parents). It must hurt like hell that her son doesn’t want to live with her, that is some massive rejection (even if she wasn’t Madonna, that stings). After controlling other people her whole life and rejecting them when she’s had enough of them or when they didn’t side with her (which happened for the slightest reasons like not being a Kaballah believer!) her own son goes against her and there is nothing she can do but hope things will get better again. This will be an exercise of patience for her as nobody has ever walked away from her like this and she loves this person so Rocco holds the power. Especially since Rocco and her were particularly close for years.
I think she will find herself very lonely in her old years because the only people close to her are her children really and they will have their own lives while she refuses to let other people in her heart and life.
Why is this case still going on? Madonna needs to let go, get some visitation, end of. Stop prolonging this in court, on tour, on social media, in the press, etc. God. If she’s like this now, she might be the same or worse if Rocco tried to move out of state for college or left the US for good when he reached 18.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that, on top of everything going on with the custody battle, realising that Sean Penn just used her once more, did nothing to stabilise her.
Do I believe him capable of manipulating her into lying for him? -Yes, I do.
She needs taking care of?? How about Madonna takes care of herself? That is what many single women do and they don’t have the disposable income that she has. Maybe Madonna needs to grow up..
It seems to me that the thing about Madonna is that she has to be increasingly shocking/bizarre in order to stay relevant in her mind. When she was first starting out, she was outrageous for the times and it got her a ton of attention and success. Now, *everyone* is outrageous, so if Madonna wants to continue to get attention, she has to out-outrageous everyone else. Since she’s no longer in her 20s/30s, it’s being seen as more pathetic and sad vs. if someone younger did the exact same thing. Think of if… I don’t know, Miley Cyrus did and said all the things Madonna has been doing and saying on stage. Would the public’s reaction be the same?
Maybe this behavior is about Rocco. Maybe it’s about Sean. Maybe it’s about losing control in general (Rocco defied her and moved to London, Sean is dating a “young blonde” after she publicly declared her love for him again). But maybe it’s also her way of staying in the limelight.
Interesting to read about clown alter programming in regards to Madonnas breakdown. There’s also an anna nicole smith clown breakdown on video as well. There are a number of different programs doll, clown etc. Definitely worth researching with an open mind imo.
It’s quite possible that Rocco has been unwilling to come back to New York for fear that Madonna will pull something to prevent him from returning to London. At least I would worry about that in his situation. If he doesn’t have to appear in person but can work through his representative and Skype the judge for a face to face, that would relieve that fear. Madonna’s actions and words throughout all this have been downright scary. If she had just let him go and focused on reasonable things like school requirements and getting him to skype her regularly so she could see him- then it would have just been a normal situation, no biggie, no courtroom drama, and the kid would feel free to bounce back and forth between both parents. She’s the one who has made it into a power trip and pushed him into a corner, and so far he’s chosen his dad’s corner. Another problem might be her propensity to trash his dad even on stage. That really doesn’t go over well when a kid loves both parents.
Madonna needs professional counseling to learn how to let go of her hatred of her son’s dad and also to deal with her intense “separation anxiety” regarding her older children. My mother was a bundle of nerves in general, an anxiety broadcaster, but if she ever felt so extreme about me going away to school and then to my own separate home, she hid it very well. Did Madonna think her kids would always be with her?
Penn sure has been laying low since the El Chapo business went down. Maybe she’s worried that his life is in danger.
I think it’s ironic that Madonna, known for being controlling, dominating, etc. would openly declare her desire to be taken care of by a man. I think a man would need very explicit instructions on what that would mean because she doesn’t bend for any man in her life, she doesn’t compromise, and she’s downright bullyish. How would that play out if she’s wanting to play the submissive in a relationship? Strange dichotomy.