Madonna Shares How She Mended Relationship With Late Brother

Madonna is opening up about the state of her relationship with her brother, Christopher Ciccone, prior to his 2024 death.

The Queen of Pop appeared on Monday’s episode of “On Purpose with Jay Shetty,” and in the wide-ranging interview, shared how she and her late sibling came to make amends following years of estrangement.

“It’s important to find a way to forgive even people that you perceive as your biggest enemies,” she explained. “For a really long time, it was my brother, who died recently, because I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like you’re the closest to … the people that hurt you the most are the people you love the most.”

She went on to note: “If someone you love deeply betrays you, and does something that shows that they have no consciousness in that moment that they made that choice to do that, it’s a bitter pill for me to swallow.”

Ciccone, one of Madonna’s seven Michigan-born siblings, died of pancreatic cancer last year at age 63. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he was seen as one of his famous sister’s closest confidantes, appearing as a backup dancer in the music video for her 1983 smash, “Lucky Star.”

He further collaborated with Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour and 1993 Girlie Show Tour, and also decorated the interiors of her New York and Los Angeles homes.

The pair reportedly fell out during Madonna’s eight-year marriage to British film director Guy Ritchie, which ended in divorce in 2008. That same year, Ciccone published a tell-all book, “Life with My Sister Madonna,” in which he delved into his sister’s private life, alluding she’d undergone cosmetic surgery and sharing less-than-flattering details of her relationships with Ritchie as well as her first husband, actor Sean Penn.

In her chat with Shetty, Madonna revealed that she and Ciccone didn’t speak for “years and years,” and that a turning point came when he became ill and reached out for her help.

“It was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down, to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand, even if he was dying, and saying, ‘I love…