ELLE MAGAZINE - MAY 2008
ELLE EXCLUSIVE: It’s intimate, it’s outrageous: UK Version
Wednesday, February 20, is quite possibly one of the most surreal days of my life. Things get off to a wacky start when my cabdriver—I am barreling toward JFK at some ungodly hour—insists on calling me “ma'am” throughout the journey. In an effort to generate a bit of respect, I tell him the purpose of my trip. “I'm off to L.A. today to interview Madonna,” I say in a manly, confident kind of way.

“That's nice for you, ma'am,” he replies in a skeptical tone revealing that he believes me to be not just a woman, but a thoroughly deluded woman.
The surrealism continues: On the plane, I make a complete spectacle of myself by sobbing all the way through the 80-minute documentary I Am Because We Are. Madonna produced this devastatingly powerful film to highlight the plight of the orphaned and HIV-afflicted population of Malawi, in southeastern Africa. If her goal has always been to engage the emotions of her public, this may be Madge's most successful venture ever.

After a recuperative nap, I plug in Hard Candy, Madonna's new CD, and indulge in a session of age-inappropriate jiggling. As I groove and shimmy and sing along—“My sugar is raw/ sticky and sweet”—and contemplate the increasingly multifaceted tour de force that is Madonna Louise Ciccone, a serious thought occurs to me: Could it be that Madge has made the transition from diva to deity?
ELLE EXCLUSIVE: US Version
 
FORCE OF NATURE
Enlisting Timbaland, Pharrell, and Justin Timberlake to help craft her boundary-burning record Hard Candy, Madonna sits down with Fanboy and fashion maven Simon Doonan to discuss the state-of-the-art dance album, her new film that will save the world, and why Lourdes loves to shop with mom

Photographed by Tom Munro
Styled by Arianne Phillips
Source: Elle by Louise Gannon / Photo: Tom Munro / Styled by Arianne Phillips
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