New Madonna books offer underwhelming revelations

By Ann Oldenburg
USA Today

A pair of dueling new Madonna biographies offer little in the way of startling revelations.

Dueling Madonna biographies hit stores yesterday, each offering a portrait of the controversial rock star who landed in New York in 1978 and has captured headlines ever since. Through the roaring '80s and the peak of her outrageousness to the more introspective '90s, both books describe a star who, as a 5-year-old, was deeply affected by her mother's death from breast cancer.

Both portray a driven, ambitious woman who had star quality from childhood and a sassy, brassy star who falls in love easily, only to become insecure and needy in her relationships. Both books paint a picture of a disciplined creature who prizes organization and being in control and who has put her quest for stardom before just about anything else.

Is there shocking news from either book? Not really.

Maybe the greatest revelation is that, according to the two unauthorized bios, she has aborted the babies of five men — dancer Tony Ward, music producer/manager Jellybean Benitez, artist Jean-Paul Basquiat, first husband Sean Penn and young English director Andy Bird.

Madonna was not interviewed for either book, based on clips, interviews with former schoolmates and colleagues, and family. They don't always agree on dates and details. Her publicist for two decades, Liz Rosenberg, said Monday that the books "are filled with a tremendous amount of inaccuracies. And, they do not reflect one iota of the essence of who this woman is." She said Madonna planned to issue a statement this week.

Andrew Morton, whose book is called "Madonna" (St. Martin's Press, $24.95), is the better known of the two authors. He wrote "Diana: Her True Story," which made news detailing Princess Diana's struggles with bulimia, and "Monica's Story," the authorized biography of Monica Lewinsky. Among the highlights in his latest:

• Madonna had affairs with Ingrid Casares and Sandra Bernhard.
• Although reports of a final incident in her marriage to Penn indicated that he was drunk and overpowered her, leaving her "trussed up like a turkey" and gagged for hours, Morton says the actor grabbed Madonna, threw her down and sat on her, pinning her arms to the floor and refusing to let her move for four hours.
• She has such a fear of breast cancer that when she used to jog six miles a day in Miami with Casares, she'd wear three bras.

Barbara Victor's "Goddess "(Cliff Street Books/HarperCollins, $26) devotes pages to Madonna's role in "Evita" and her childhood in Michigan, and quotes professors on motivations behind the diva's behavior. Among the highlights:

• Madonna would wear red or green underwear and hang upside down on the jungle gym to get noticed at her Catholic school.
• She has an IQ over 140.
• In March 1999, things were rocky with Ritchie, whom she married last December. Arguments would erupt from her criticism of the way he chewed his food to his making fun of her hairpieces. London bookmakers give the marriage a 1-in-3 chance of lasting five years.