Madonna: “I preferred life before phone”

»Madonna spent her first major paychecks on paintings. She had collected Frida Kahlo since the ’80s, mesmerized by the artist’s cool gaze, as well as geometric Art Deco nudes by Tamara de Lempicka and works by Francis Bacon and Salvador Dalí. (…) Madonna is short, and the art was hung low, for her own appreciation. She wanted to be face to face. “Confrontational — they’re hung in a confrontational way,” she told me.«

»Now, in the social-media era, the Greek chorus she had blocked out was seeping in, saying she was too old, washed up, out of ideas, finished. “It’s not that I engage with it, but it ends up going in front of your eyes, and then when it goes in front of your eyes, it’s inside your head,” she said. “It comes up in your feed, and then you get pulled into it whether you like it or not. So it’s a challenge to rise above it, to not be affected by it, to not get frustrated, to not compare, to not feel judged, to not be hurt. You know, it’s a test. Yeah.” She added, “I preferred life before phone.”«

»When we talked about aging, I was surprised when she turned the issue back on me. “I think you think about growing old too much,” she said later. “I think you think about age too much. I think you should just stop thinking about it.” She went on: “Stop thinking, just live your life and don’t be influenced by society trying to make you feel some type of way about your age or what it is you’re supposed to be doing.”«

»If I asked a stupid question, I had to take a drink of tequila, but if I had a smart one, she would drink. At one point, I wondered if she planned to fall in love and marry again. “Wait, what does romance have to do with getting married?” she said. “Stupid question! Down it.” Only later did I realize she had created a distraction and avoided the question.«

Vanessa Grigoriadis about Madonna in „The New York Times Magazine“.