La Vida Con Mi Hermana (C. CicCone)

Simon Spotlight EntertainmentA Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.1230 Avenue of the
AmericasNew York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2008 by Christopher Ciccone and Cabochon Diamond Productions, LLC
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0926-7ISBN-10: 1-4391-0926-5
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For my father, Silvio, and to Joan,who has always been a mother to me.

INTRODUCTION

For anyone who cameinto contact withMadonna, to know her at all you had
to know [Christopher]. The one was incomprehensiblewithout the other. He
was her dark side andshe was his.
Rupert Everett, Red Carpets andOther Banana Skins
SOME READERS MAY say that my dark side caused me to write this
book, others that my sister’s did. Some may say that seeing Madonna through
my eyes is a way of fully comprehendingher; others who believe she walks
on water won’t.
There are many ways of looking at this story—as a memoir of a shared
childhood, as the celebration of an icon who turns fifty this year, as my
autobiography…and as my answer to the eternal question “What is it really
like being Madonna’s brother?”
I had originally hoped that this book would also be a way for me to define
myself and separatefrom my sister at last. Instead, it has been a catharsis.

After getting some perspective on our story, I finally understand and accept
that one aspect of my life will never change: I was born my mother’s son, but
I will die my sister’s brother.
I no longer balk at the truth, because when all is said and done and written, I
am truly proud that Madonna is my sister and always will be.PROLOGUE

His dream must have seemed so close he couldhardly fail to grasp it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
THE LANESBOROUGH HOTEL,
LONDON, ENGLAND, 8:30 A.M.,
SEPTEMBER 25, 1993

THE ALARM CLOCK rings in a low-key British way. I get up, peer
through a gap in the thick, purple silk drapes, and the sun glimmers back at
me. Luckily, the weather’s fine. After all, this is the UK, landof rain and fog.
The Girlie Show tour, which I designed and directed, opens tonight, and we
don’t want the crowd getting drenched before the show even begins.
We. The royal we. Madonna and me. My sister and I, she who is still fast
asleep in a mahogany four-poster bed in her suite adjoining mine. The royal
we, so fitting for a woman who is sometimes a royal pain in my ass.
AlthoughBuckingham Palace, the queen of England’s residence, is just
across the road, in my estimation and that of millions of fans, she is the real
queen of the universe—Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, my elder sister
by twenty-seven months, who, just eleven years after the release of her first
record, is now one of the most famous women in the world.
I eat an orange. No big English breakfast for me, nomatter how much I like
it. Otherwise, I’ll probably throw up when Madonna and I take our scheduled
six-mile jog at eleven. Just as we did yesterday, just as we will do
tomorrow—and on every other day during the tour.

Schedule, in fact, is my sister’s middle name. Up at nine in the morning, in
bed by eleven at night, with every hour in between planned by her as rigidly
as any militarycampaign. With her mania for making lists, for running her
life according to a timetable, in another incarnation Madonna could easily
have run a prison, directed airport traffic, or been a five-star general.
Sadly for her, though, her nights can’t be structured or played out according
to a strict schedule, because she is an insomniac and rarely sleeps more than
three hours each night.
Madonna’s...