A lot of people might not like Madonna or her work, or both, but even they have to admit that hardly any woman had as much pull and power in the entertainment industry as the Material Girl that was Like A Virgin when she was Desperately Seeking Susan. Madonna might have created the odd flop, but when the Spice Girls were just a bunch of giggling teenagers and yelled "Girl Power!," Madonna didn't need to chime in because she was already the ringleader and showed the music business what the power and ambition of one woman could do.
     When Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Mich., as the daughter of Silvio, a design engineer for Chrysler/General Motors, and Madonna Ciccone, a housewife who died of cancer when Madonna was only 5, nobody had the faintest clue how the little girl would change our perspectives and even fashion. Her career really started with the 1986 American Music Award for Pop/Rock Best Female Video Artist. There is hardly an award she hasn't won yet, including heading %People%'s "Worst Dressed" list in 1999.
     Madonna is the most successful female artist of our time and has had more No. 1 singles than any other female artist. Her lovers are legion, and even she might be hard pressed to remember them all. Among them were Dennis Rodman and Warren Beatty, and she has been married twice: once to actor Sean Penn, and in December 2000 she married Guy Ritchie, the British director. With that marriage, the Madonna who changed lovers and incarnations about as quickly as other people change their clothes seems to have settled down—at least for the moment.
     InsideCx: You toned your video down a bit and pulled the original version shortly after its release. Were you worried about the backlash it might create? Madonna: [laughs] That's a funny question. I've provoked all my life, not for the sake of creating scandals or to be political, but for my sake, my rights as a woman in a male-dominated society. Plenty of my videos were banned from daytime TV; I think that shows that I wasn't afraid of a ban or a backlash. I simply felt that the violent images featured in the video were not appropriate. There was a war, and no matter what I personally think about the war, it would have been disrespectful to anybody losing or risking their lives. The sad fact of a war is simply that there are always innocent people losing their lives. I do respect the people serving in the armed forces, and with a war, I certainly didn't want to offend them.
     InsideCx: But didn't you know this before? Letting the video run for only a few hours and then pulling it and replacing it with another version could be seen as a way to get publicity. I'm not obsessed with publicity or celebrity anymore, honestly. I think it's all a lot of sh*t. I had it and it didn't make me a happier person. Actually, I quite hate it when the media doesn't leave me and my family alone, but I accept it as the price of success. What happened with the video was that I filmed it in January. And by the time the video was finished, we were at war. And many of the things that I was trying to depict or warn people of were already happening in the world. But with everything going on right now, the soldiers being killed and wounded and the destruction that's taking place, I just don't think it's appropriate. And for anybody who might say, "She just did it for cheap publicity," I would like to point out that I did lose a lot of money because I insisted on remodeling and re-shooting the video.
     InsideCx: You have taken on religion and male domination before, so this sounds like a new Madonna. I didn't want to be provocative for the sake of being provocative. I'm very willing to push some buttons. I don't have a problem with that. But I think that people would misconstrue that I was making light of what's happening to the soldiers in Iraq, which I am not. I just don't think that people right now … things are so serious … do really reflect and think about what I was actually trying to say. And people are so volatile that they're not going to see irony. Let's face it, most people only go for the obvious and don't really think twice. The older I get, the more I start to realize that there are a lot of stupid people around and stupidity can make them dangerous!
     InsideCx: May I ask your political view of the war? What do you think about it? You are still an American citizen, but you live in the U.K. In the U.K. and the rest of Europe, neither Blair nor Bush are currently very popular. I'm not a political person. I'm not pro-Bush and I'm not anti-Bush. I'm pro-peace, pro-democracy. I think people should have the right to express themselves freely, and I'd like to point out that what is happening to the Dixie Chicks and a lot of other artists—the boycott of their albums and shows—is not very democratic. They used their freedom of speech and now they get punished for it.
     InsideCx: A lot of people claim that the pop culture shouldn't be mixed with politics. Do you agree? No, in fact I violently disagree! The very root of democracy is all about pop—the popular vote. Like I said before, punishing us for saying anything against the war or the president is pure intolerance. Anyone that disagrees with us is obviously not supporting democracy. And there's nothing popular about that, is there?
     InsideCx: What did you want to say with the song "American Life"? I feel like I've sort of had a revelation, basically a realization that nothing is what it seems. That is what I say in my song, and that there's absolutely nothing in the material world or the physical world that is going to bring you happiness. The only thing that matters is the way you treat people and love them.
     InsideCx: How does London agree with you? I remember that you said once that you often felt very lonely because the Brits are quite different from their American cousins. I'm settling down nicely. I used to get very lonely when I first started coming here. I used to get really lonely and sad and complain a lot to Guy, but I've got friends here now, and I've got some really nice friends. It's kind of cool because I see them when I come here and I see my other friends when I go there.
     InsideCx: Anything you particularly like about England? I like pubs. I like my husband. I like the sense of humor here that most people have. I like the architecture. There are really cool scenes here. There's a really cool art scene, there's fantastic theater, great music, cool fashion—I could go on and on.
     InsideCx: But the press in the U.K. seems to be a lot more vicious than in the U.S. I didn't mention the press among the things I like here, did I? We even made it a rule in our house: Nobody can bring magazines or newspapers into the house. Most magazines are just full of lies and I won’t have anything to do with them.