NEWS - DECEMBER 2006 Ladies' Home Journal Interview - June 2005 The inside scoop on LHJ's interview with July cover girl -- a material girl no more -- Madonna During an unseasonably warm and sunny week at the end of March, Madonna spent the day in London with writer Jeanne Marie Laskas and Ladies' Home Journal. As part of her publicity efforts for her fifth children's book, Lotsa de Casha, she agreed to pose for Ladies' Home Journal's cover, an exclusive that will reach the magazine's readership of 14 million women. Yes, it's a change of pace for the once-upon a time Material Girl, but at 46, she is wiser, more soulful -- and more beautiful than ever! In preparation for the cover shoot and what became a 15-page inside photo portfolio, Madonna and her team collaborated for weeks with the Ladies' Home Journal creative team, as well as with photographer Lorenzo Agius, on the elaborate costumes and set. The shoot took place at a prop house in North London that specializes in international antiques. The room that was created for the Madonna shoot was meant to suggest a 15th-century library, in keeping with the underlying theme of the classic power of books and reading. "We were transported in time. The set looked like Nostradamus meets Alice in Wonderland," says Ladies' Home Journal's editor-in-chief, Diane Salvatore, who was present for the eight-hour shoot. Madonna wore a series of gorgeous dresses and outfits, including Chanel and Vivienne Westwood, not to mention posing playfully with an assortment of monocles, top hats, and even taxidermy mice. "She was the consummate pro -- she worked hard, she was focused, she was polite, she changed outfits more swiftly and immaculately than I ever seen anyone do," says Salvatore. When her daughter Lourdes stopped by the set, she lit up and began telling her stories about how she was a princess at a ball who had escaped to a library because she was bored with the party. A few days later, Ladies' Home Journal contributor Jeanne Marie Laskas interviewed Madonna at her home in London, a veddy veddy British-looking house that Laskas described as "straight out of Mary Poppins." During their two-hour chat in Madonna's office, over tea, the international superstar opened up about her family, her faith, and life today, revealing a very different, very adult, and still very provocative Madonna. On her marriage to director Guy Ritchie It's taken me a long time to realize what the whole point of marriage is, and I don't think it has anything to do with our romantic notions -- like walks together, and sending flowers to one another, and bringing up children together. Those are all manifestations, but the whole point of marriage is for each and every one of us to learn how to get along with one person, and to learn to love that person unconditionally. And if you can do it with one person, then your whole attitude toward the world and humanity can change. On motherhood Motherhood was the beginning of my own journey asking the question, Why am I here? I had to stop and think: What am I going to teach my daughter? What do I believe in? I don't even know what I believe in, and if I don't know, how am I going to teach my daughter anything...I was into freedom of speech, freedom of expression, women's rights, and that's all great. But that's one tiny little percentage of the world out there that needs to be explored and I wasn't really dealing with the big picture. Motherhood was my triggering point for trying to understand the meaning of life. On regrets There were times I really had an altruistic goal, I really did want to help people. And then other times, I just wanted to show off -- let's call a spade a spade. And I knew I could get away with it, and I knew I could get people to pay attention to me. Do I think I helped people? Yeah, I do. Do I think I hindered people? Yes I do. I wasn't really clear on what I was doing yet, my point of view. I wasn't thinking responsibility. I wasn't thinking everything I say and do has an effect on the world around me. Sometimes now I sit back and say, What was I thinking before I was thinking, you know? On her line of children's books It felt really good to publish a book and to know it got into the hands of lots of kids, and to start reading letters from children who read The English Roses and said, 'You know, when I read your book it made me think of how horrible me and my girlfriends were to this girl in school.' I thought, it's so cool I'm helping kids, and I never thought that I'd be doing that. I like the idea that people can change and that everybody has to go through a painful process before they can realize that they're idiots. On her faith Kabbalah is not a religion -- it's a belief system. You can come from any religious background to study Kabbalah, but it's too weird for people, too foreign. They can't get their heads around it, so they have to devalue it by saying it's a trend or a cult. All this nonsense about how only celebrities are into it just makes me laugh, because to say you're a Kabbalist, there's nothing easy about it. It's not enough just to read a book. You have to change, and the only way you can change your nature is to constantly, constantly study. Source:  Ladies' Home Journal by Jeanne Marie Laskas Photo:  Lorenzo Agius Back to Interview Index