Happy Birthday Madonna, sixty years old.
Pushing boundaries since the 1980’s, The queen of personal reinvention has crafted her music and image, morphing to stand the test of time. With more than 300m record sales worldwide she holds The Guinness Book of Records for best selling female artist. Renowned for her fearless approach to diversifying and risk taking “I’ve been popular and unpopular successful and unsuccessful loved and loathed and I know how meaningless it all is. Therefore I feel free to take whatever risks I want.” – Madonna
Her start in life was rocky. Madonna Louise Ciccone was born August 16, 1958. Her mother died of breast cancer at age 30, when Madonna was just five. Madonna told Vanity Fair that she saw herself in her youth as a “lonely girl who was searching for something. I cared about being good at something. I didn’t shave my underarms and I didn’t wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades…. I wanted to be somebody.” In 1966, Madonna’s father married the family’s housekeeper and had two children. Madonna resented her father for getting remarried, and began rebelling against him, resulting in a strained relationship for many years.
In 1978, Madonna dropped out of college and relocated to New York City. She had little money whilst working as a waitress at Dunkin’ Donuts. Madonna said of her move to New York, “It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done.” She started to work as a backup dancer for other established artists. @Madonna claimed that one night, while returning from a rehearsal, a pair of men held her at knifepoint and forced her to perform fellatio. She later found the incident to be “a taste of my weakness, it showed me that I still could not save myself in spite of all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it.” “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” – Madonna
Here’s wishing the queen of Blonde Ambition happiness and great future decades, whoever she becomes!
