IN BED WITH MADONNA - INTERVIEWS
Madonna interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America
Madonna was interviewed for Good Morning America by Diane Sawyer during her visit to the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Monday, 9.29.2003

When Madonna released her first book — Sex — 11 years ago, no one could have predicted her follow-up would be a children's book filled with moral lessons.

But the former "matierial girl" says she's changed since Sex, despite her recent controversial opened-mouth kiss with Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards.

"I have a right to write any book I want about anything. And the books that I'm writing now are a reflection of who I am and what I value in the world," Madonna told ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America.
Madonna's sexually charged onstage performances may lead some to believe she's sending mixed messages, but the ever-changing star says everything she does is a reflection of all of her experiences.

The singer's children's story, The English Roses, was published simultaneously around the world Sept. 15 and will top The New York Times' children's list for the Oct. 5 edition.

The story focuses on four fashionable 11-year-old girls who envy a neighborhood girl named Binah. They belive Binah, who is beautiful, has a perfect life, so they exclude her from their group. Then, through the assistance of a feisty fairy godmother, they see that not everything is what it seems.

The girls see that Binah lives alone with her father and spends her childhood days doing all the household chores.

Madonna — now a wife and mother of two young children — says the story is one that's close to her heart. Her own mother died when she was just a young girl, and she admits that she never had friends who were part of the cool crowd at school. She says music and dancing provided an early escape.
Lonely Girl
"I felt pretty lonely until I discovered dancing," Madonna said. "I think I was about 13 or 14. Yeah, I felt pretty much on my own."
And the moral lessons? She claims those come from personal experiences that she learned from a little later in her life.
"I think there's been a lot of times where I wish I wouldn't have said something that was unkind or, you know, acted selfishly or egotistically," Madonna said. "When I was just looking straight forward and I had blinders, and I didn't care about how my behavior affected other people, and I was thinking 'oh, you know, just give me more, just give me more.' I mean, you know, fame is very intoxicating."
Madonna says she wrote The English Roses because she felt like telling this particular story at this point in her life. And although she admits she has some regrets when it comes to the ways she has treated others over the years, she says she has no regrets when it comes to her work. Everything from "Like a Virgin" to Sex still has meaning to her.
"When I published Sex, that was a subject that I was interested in exploring. And to me they're both reflections of who I was and who I am now. It's a, you know, kind of development of me," she said.
Madonna's new role as a children's author has been slightly overshadowed by her controversial smooch with Britney Spears at the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards in late August.
A Haunting Kiss
"If I had only known," Madonna said.
The singer/author says she's heard more jokes than she can bear from just about everyone since the smooch.
"'You didn't kiss me like that' — yeah, they do. And I say 'well, you didn't dance with me like that' and that usually shuts them up," she said.
Madonna says she will continue to take her performances wherever she pleases. She says she won't begin to set boundaries for herself in the years to come and she makes no apologies when it comes to her MTV stunt or her recent GAP ads with hip-hop star Missy Elliot.
"No, I think those things are important … I live in the world and I am a part of the world, of the physical world, and for me to be able to have the ability to reach people and to share whatever I know, I need to have a platform to stand on. So I need to work in both worlds, so to speak," she said.
The provocative performer says one of the lessons she wants to share with the "physical world" is what she has learned about our control over our own desitiny.
"I think we're all in charge of our rockets," Madonna said. "And, you know, if they take us to good places or they take us to bad places, it's because we steered them there."
When Madonna released her first book — Sex — 11 years ago, no one could have predicted her follow-up would be a children's book filled with moral lessons. But the former "matierial girl" says she's changed since Sex, despite her recent controversial opened-mouth kiss with Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards. "I have a right to write any book I want about anything. And the books that I'm writing now are a reflection of who I am and what I value in the world," Madonna told ABCNEWS'...

Source: ABC News with Diane Sawyer / Posted: 10.1.2003
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