Entertainment, Music - Army Times

After divorce, what’s next for Madonna?

For more than two decades, many have found it impossible to entirely separate Madonna the controversial, trend-setting woman from Madonna the controversial, trend-setting pop icon.

Now may be a pivotal moment for both. After months of speculation that her marriage was in trouble, the 50-year-old singer and her director husband, Guy Ritchie, 40, confirmed Wednesday that they’ll divorce.

The announcement coincides with the U.S. leg of Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet concert tour and her new movie, “Filth and Wisdom,” which opens Friday.

There’s bound to be speculation about how the split will affect her career, both creatively and practically. Madonna hasn’t canceled tour stops, and Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis is confident that any pain she’s going through “won’t be reflected in her shows. She’s too much of a professional. She’ll go out there and do what she needs to do.”

It’s also safe to say Madonna won’t be chatting about the breakup.

“She’s not going to go on TV and talk about it,” longtime publicist Liz Rosenberg said. “The details are not up for discussion. People may assume that because they see pictures of Madonna and her family that she leads a very public life, but that’s not the case.”

Certainly, however sexually or spiritually provocative her work, Madonna has never been a confessional artist. As Rosenberg notes, her songs aren’t “deliberately autobiographical. People misinterpret them all the time.”

She has titillated fans with projects such as her coffee-table book “Sex,” and she has chronicled her offstage life more seriously in documentaries. “We saw her at her mother’s grave in ‘Truth or Dare,’” says Alan Light, a former editor for Spin and Vibe magazines. “She has certainly used personal material in a public way, so it would be a bit disingenuous to say that she doesn’t reveal herself.”

But as Light points out, Madonna has taken a “considered and strategic” approach to opening her heart. The veteran celebrity columnist Liz Smith agrees: “She tells exactly what she wants (people to know), how she wants to tell it. Exposing her body never meant exposing her soul. She won’t beg the media or her audience for love and understanding.”

Smith adds that Madonna “is not sanguine about the end of her marriage. Divorce is a big thing to her. Still, she’s not going to adopt a victim pose, even if she feels she’s been done wrong.”

DeCurtis says it’s “impossible to know” how Madonna’s divorce will inform upcoming artistic endeavors. “She’s made each album an event, and that event has always been pretty much detached from what’s going on in her personal life, even if some of that is reflected in the music.”

As for her personal prospects, Smith says, “she’s only 50. She won’t be singing the old torch song “I’m Through with Love.” And she won’t care if we don’t approve of who she loves next.”