Madonna: Finally uncovered

Sunday Mirror, Feb 11, 2001 by David Rowe

A topless Madonna was hosting an all-girl party when she first met cropped-haired Ingrid in 1992 and they were seen kissing and groping each other in public. Again, work and pleasure were entwined when Ingrid posed for raunchy pictures in Madonna's controversial book, Sex.

The affair appeared to incense Sandra Bernhard, who accused Madonna of stealing Ingrid. She was so upset she phoned a Los Angeles radio show telling listeners: "Madonna's been so evil with me. She's a jerk."

The affair lasted several months and the two women have remained firm friends. "I learn from Madonna every day of my life," Ingrid said. "We have a good respect for each other's style. I know what she likes and she knows what I like. She knows I like Dolce and Gabbana because I steal it from her closet."

Madonna's insatiable appetite for sexual partners after she split up with Penn coincided with a sexual frenzy in her work. The raunchy video of Justify My Love, the shocking sado-masochism of Erotica and her book Sex, established her firmly as the Queen of Sleaze.

She justified her work by saying: "Women aren't allowed to be sexual and provocative and intelligent at the same time."

She claimed it was an "act of rage" against the establishment which helped her lose her own "sexual inhibitions".

Singers Prince, Michael Jackson, Marky Mark and actor Don Johnson were all linked with Madonna at various times. Rapper Vanilla Ice said after they split that he couldn't stand the pressure of not knowing if she would be nice or mean to him from one day to the next.

Perhaps heeding his words, at least two British actors, Rufus Sewell and Hugh Grant, are said to have turned down her requests for a date.

But friends such as actress Rosie O'Donnell and designer Donatella Versace claim the private side of Madonna is very different from what you see on stage.

"She was the most loyal friend I had when my brother was murdered in Miami," said Donatella in an interview with cable TV station VH1. "Madonna was first on the phone to offer support."

Rosie O'Donnell, who met Madonna on the set of A League Of Their Own says: "The best thing about making that film was getting to know her."

And Harvey Weinstein, chairman of Miramax Films, adds: "People don't see the soft side of Madonna. I don't think she wants them to see that side of her."

During the Nineties her "mad search for love" was coupled with a desperation to have children.

But Madonna the self-publicist and sensation-seeker met her match in Dennis Rodman, the basketball star known as The Worm, who had a penchant for women's clothing and purple hair dye.

She picked him up in a gay club in Miami and took him back to her ocean-front mansion.

But later Rodman spared few details of what happened in his autobiography Bad As I Wanna Be. He said Madonna who had built a career around her sleazy sexual imagery "wasn't so hot" in bed herself.

Living up to his nickname, Rodman claimed she bombarded him with calls and fax messages pleading with him to make her a mother. And he said she was so desperate to conceive she would never let him wear a condom.