Alex Rodriguez threw an All Star party last night at Jay-Z’s 40/40 club, but none of his Yankee teammates bothered to show. He was there with his mother, who is coincidentally named Lourdes, (which also happens to be Madonna’s daughter’s name), and his manager, Guy Oseary. Oseary also reps Madonna and is rumored to have fueled the adultery rumors in order to drum up publicity for both of his clients. Also by Rodriguez’s side was Ingrid Casares, an old friend of Madonnas who has told the press she’s bisexual and that she falls in love “with someone’s soul,” which for her is “not gender-specific.” The NY Post hints that Casares might be having a fling with Rodriguez, because she was seen leaving his apartment the next afternoon. Maybe they’re just friends.

Rodriguez’s fellow Yankees are said to be fed up at all the press he’s getting for his “affair of the heart” with Madonna, which partially explains the snub of his party. There were also plenty of other All Star parties to attend that night. Shortstop Derek Jeter had a competing party at another NY club which drew more Yankees. Jeter is dating Mika Kelly and is not as much of a recent tabloid target.

Throughout the night there was buzz at A-Rod’s party that Madonna was about to grace the crowd with her presence at any moment. She failed to haul her tiny ass out of the Kabbalah pew long enough in order to do a favor for the fellow convert who’s kept her name in the papers:

ALEX Rodriguez’s teammates must wish they could divorce him too. “He’s become a huge distraction with the Madonna fiasco,” a source told Page Six. “It’s always all about him.” That explains why none of his fellow Yankees went to the All-Star bash he hosted at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club Monday night.

Instead, his mommy, Lourdes, and his new best friends, Guy Oseary and Ingrid Casares, were by his side in a corner booth as he threw back shots. And Casares was then spotted leaving A-Rod’s Park Avenue pad yesterday afternoon.

Reps from Berk Communications, who’d slapped Madonna’s name on their tip sheet for the event, kept insisting she was on her way, but she never showed. Instead, A-Rod was entertained by big-busted hotties who shimmied to Material Girl tunes and desperately tried to make eye contact with him.

[From TheNY Post]

The Post has more gossip from the All Star parties, and say Shaquille O’Neal was beckoning various brunettes be brought over to him at Tao. He just sat there and would point a woman out to his security guy to bring over for him. The guy runs around a court for a living and can’t be bothered to get up in order to scope out the prospects.

I’m surprised Madonna didn’t show up to Alex’s party. Yesterday The Post reported that she was “loving” all the attention she’s been getting for her rumored non-affair with Rodriguez and that she was planning on attending the All Star game with their mutual manager Oseary. Instead she didn’t go, and she didn’t come to his party either. I wonder if Ritchie talked some sense into her.

Alex Rodriguez is shown in the All Star Parade yesterday. Credit: PNP/WENN. Header image by Mark Dye / PR Photos. Ingrid Casares is shown on 5/16/07. Credit: Janet Mayer / PR Photos

Love is such a fickle thing. So is sexual preference. Apparently a guy like Alex Rodriguez can fall in love with – and marry – a woman like Cynthia Rodriguez, then turn around and fall in love with Madonna and her Hulk muscles. Clearly the guy doesn’t have a really specific “type.”

Us has an exclusive from a friend of A-Rod’s who says the baseball player told him he was in love with Madonna over dinner six months ago. Which isn’t really a surprise – the notion that the two had just recently met was clearly bullshit.

Just met? Hardly. New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez was smitten with Madonna six months ago when he was exchanging text messages with her while dining with a friend in Miami. “He kept smiling, acting as if he was a little kid,” the dinner companion tells Us Weekly in its latest issue, on newsstands now. “He told me it was Madonna,” A-Rod’s friend says. “I was shocked.”

The highest-paid player in baseball then “proceeded to say he was in love with her,” the pal tells Us. “I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t.” By February, the 32-year-old slugger had upped the ante. “He said, ‘She’s my f–king soulmate, dude,’” the friend tells Us.

So was it an affair? “Without talking about specifics of sexual conduct, there’s no question,” her attorney, Earle Lilly, tells Us. “No one very often has pictures of the actual sex itself.” While Madonna, 49 – who put on a show of unity with husband Guy Ritchie last week – has denied a relationship with A-Rod, Us Weekly reports all signs say otherwise.

[From Us Weekly]

“‘My fucking soulmate, dude.’” What a romantic statement. Really, the poetic eloquence of A-Rod’s statement would make any woman leave her husband of seven years. I got goose bumps just reading it. Normally that only happens when I read Rumi or Yeats, but that A-Rod really has a way with words.

This is going to be one hell of an ugly divorce. Cynthia Rodriguez seems to be fighting mad – and she seems to have pretty much everyone agreeing with her.

Here’s Alex Rodriguez leaving his midtown apartment as he signs a few autographs for fans today. I mages thanks to Splash. Header with Madonna arriving at the Kabbalah center with Guy Ritchie and their children after getting caught in the rain in New York on Saturday. Photographer: Anthony Dixon. Images thanks to WENN.

The Madonna/A-Rod spiritual cheating and subsequent A-Rod divorce story keeps getting more interesting. Yesterday we heard that Cynthia Rodriguez went on a wild spending spree in Paris after the news broke of her estranged husband’s alleged affair with Madonna. Rodriguez is said to have blown six figures on a lavish first class vacation for herself, two friends and their daughter at a time when she was rumored to have been on a getaway with musician Lenny Kravitz. It turns out she did spend time with Kravitz and friends in Paris during his tour stop there, but the two are not romantically involved. She spent more time getting spa treatments, going to the best restaurants, and generally letting off steam.

The NY Post reports that Kravitz had just dumped his manager, Guy Oseary, after learning of the way that Oseary used a maybe purely cult-driven relationship to generate publicity through a fake cheating story. In retaliation for being fired by Kravitz, Oseary is said to have leaked the story that A-Rod’s wife Cynthia had jetted off to Paris to be with him:

Dodd Romero, the hulking fitness trainer who accompanied Cynthia to Paris, told The Post that Kravitz blames his former manager, Guy Oseary, for entangling the rocker in the twisted tales about Madonna and the Yankee slugger.

Romero called Kravitz two weeks ago to tip him off that Oseary - who managed Kravitz, Madonna and A-Rod - was about to “pimp out Madonna and A-Rod,” said a source. But Kravitz didn’t approve and told Romero, “I’ll take care of this” - and fired Oseary.

Kravitz was shocked when he was then accused of having a fling with the slugger’s wife, said the source. Romero believes Oseary planted the story in retaliation for being dumped.

Kravitz, Cynthia Rodriguez and Romero were all in Kravitz’s tour bus when the reports broke in Paris. “Lenny looked like he was going to throw up,” Romero told the Post. “Lenny said, ‘I worked so hard to clean up my image and now I’m gonna get dragged into this.’ ”

The trio planned to fly to Spain to meet up with Denzel Washington, whom Romero also trains, but canceled when Kravitz’s alleged tryst made news. The group agreed it was best for Cynthia to instead head back to Miami to “sort out the mess.”

A rep for Kravitz confirmed he dumped Oseary two weeks ago.

[From The NY Post]

The Post’s source, Dodd Romero, is the same trainer who said earlier in the week that A-Rod was “totally brainwashed” by Madonna and that “he got pulled in by the dark side.”

Speaking of the “dark side,” Rodriguez was photographed having lunch yesterday with Rabbi Michael Berg, the director of the Kabbalah Centre. If A-Rod thinks his wife is trying to take him to the cleaners he should wait and see how much cash he ends up giving that organization for whatever enlightenment they’re going to bestow on him. It doesn’t sound like his involvement in the cult has benefitted his career or personal life so far.

Here’s Lenny Kravitz on the set of his Levi’s commercial in Prague on April 27th. Header of Cynthia Rodriguez at Madison Square Garden for Justin Timberlake’s concert last August 15th. Photographer: Doug Meszler. Images thanks to WENN.

Alex Rodriguez’s annoyed wife Cynthia did jet off to Paris, but maybe it had more to do with spending her estranged husband’s money than meeting with her rumored lover, rocker Lenny Kravitz. The NY Daily News reports that she took off to the French city, paying for first class tickets for herself, two friends and their daughter. Once there she had spa treatments, ate at exclusive restaurants, and had a grand time all on her husband’s credit card. She’s also hired four different lawyers and Alex’s legal team claims she’s deliberately keeping him from his two daughters, Natasha, 3, and Ella, 11 weeks.

Spurned spouse Cynthia Rodriguez used the Yankee slugger’s credit card to the tune of $100,000 to punish him for a dalliance with Madonna that both he and the Material Girl deny, an A-Rod pal said.

“She’s been spending wildly,” the friend said. “She spent close to $100,000 on her jaunt to Paris.”

Cynthia flew the godparents of her daughters, Dodd and Sabina Romero, and their older daughter, first-class to the City of Light, the friend said.

There, Cynthia “had spa treatments, she went to the best restaurants,” the A-Rod friend said. “She originally was going to head to Spain, where Lenny Kravitz was touring.”

In addition to embarrassing Rodriguez and feeding false rumors that she and the rocker were an item, Cynthia gave A-Rod a taste of the gouging to come, the friend said.

“She needs four lawyers in two different states?” asked the friend. “That’s not the dream team, it’s the greed team.”

Also, the pal said, Cynthia has deliberately kept A-Rod from his daughters while tarring him as an absentee father.

“Alex desperately wanted to see his children while she was in Paris,” the friend said. “She blocked him. She said, ‘You cannot see them.’”

[From NY Daily News]

The News notes that A-Rod’s legal team is releasing this information in response to the many stories from Cynthia’s side about his questionable relationship with pop star Madonna. Yesterday her lawyer clarified an earlier statement and Alex’s alledged infidelity, calling his dalliance with Madonna” an affair of the heart” and not “sexual infidelity.” It sounds like A-Rod was doing some late night Kabbalah study at Madonna’s place. His former trainer called Rodriguez “brainwashed” by the singer, and said that he got all wistful and faraway whenever her songs were playing.

The Daily News had another story yesterday that revealed the lengths to which Madonna and Rodriguez went to keep their “friendship” secret. They claim that he frequently took the back service elevator at Madonna’s apartment complex - which led straight to her bedroom. Madonna has denied an affair with Rodriguez, and blamed the media and its gullible consumers for believing the reports about their affair. TMZ claims that she has timed the stories about the trouble in her seven year marriage and is postponing her divorce for maximum press coverage in advance of her European tour later this summer.

In light of Cynthia Rodriguez’s shopping spree, here’s Blu Cantrell doing “Hit ‘Em Up Style” from 2001. (There might be a commercial ahead of the video. Sorry but this is only embeddable version I could find:)

Photo Credit: Alex and Cynthia Rodriguez are shown at the “Grand opening of The 40/40 Club, a new sports bar and lounge located inside The Palazzo Hotel” in Las Vegas on 12/30/07, thanks to Chris Connor for WENN. They are shown below with daughter Natasha Rodriguez at FAO Schwarz as Alex reads from his book ‘Out of the Ballpark’ on 7/20/07, thanks to PNP for WENN.

TMZ claims to have an insider source that confirms what a lot of you have suspected about Guy Ritchie and Madonna’s marriage - they’ve been going through the motions for a while and are milking it for maximum publicity and profitability.

These two are said to be waiting to officially split until her “Sticky and Sweet” European tour is complete. They’re hoping that the continued speculation about their marriage will help Madonna sell as many tickets as possible and that she’ll continue to land on the front pages of the glossies. They even waited to visit divorce lawyers to ensure maximum buzz. When her tour is over and she has enough piles of cash to ensure that their children are set for life they plan to part amicably. It’s all business for Madonna’s personal life as well as her well-controlled career:

Never forget — Madonna is the master at using the media to her advantage, and the current are-they-or-aren’t-they divorcing drams is no different. Now we’re hearing Guy and Madge’s peeps have been planning this for months, hoping the hubbub will sell more tickets to her upcoming tour.

Well-placed sources tell us the Ritchies plan to officially split in November or December — after the Mrs.’ upcoming “Sticky and Sweet” world tour. Why? Big bucks. The concerts are expected to earn close to $300 mil worldwide, and they’ve decided to ear mark that to provide for their three children’s future…

There is a whole PR strategy that has been in place for some time. We’re told the Material Girl will be “very visible” in the months leading up to the tour to “generate a lot of publicity.” That’s when “news” of the marriage’s demise would slowly leak out, causing tongues to wag — and Madonna to be on the cover of papers and mags around the world.

The marriage, we’re told, has been effectively over for some time. The couple are friends, and have realized that it is in both of their interests to make a pile of cash from this tour. No working things out here — our spies say rumors of reconciliation are “garbage.” One person told us, “She is simply playing the media — and the public — as usual.”

[From TMZ]

TMZ talks a lot of shit about people, but their sources are usually solid and they had the scoops in the Heath Ledger case before the other news outlets. They don’t seem to make up stories based on hunches like the gossip rags and I would bet they have good reason to publish this. It makes sense, too.

Meanwhile Alex Rodriguez’s wife Cynthia officially filed for divorce in Miami today. She cited her husband’s “extramarital affairs and other marital misconduct” and said he “emotionally abandoned his wife and children.” Cynthia Rodriguez is seeking custody of their two children, Natasha, 3, Ella, 2 months, along with child support and alimony. Madonna is not named in the divorce papers, but as we reported earlier today her lawyer told the media that Alex’s “relationship with Madonna was the final straw for Mrs. Rodriguez.”

Third baseman Rodriguez has a 10 year contract with the NY Yankees worth $275 million. He has a prenuptial agreement with Cynthia, but she may contest that. The couple owns a 6 bedroom home in Miami worth $12 million and an apartment at Trump Plaza in NY worth $7.4 million. [Details from AP via Huffington Post]

We’ll have to wait a few months to see if this news about Madonna holding to her failed marriage for the sake of her tour is true. In the meantime Alex Rodriguez’s divorce will get a lot more media attention because of his alleged relationship with the pop star.

Photo credits: Header is of Guy Ritchie and Madonna leaving Harry’s Bar on 3/18/08 the last time there were rumors of a split. Photos below are of Guy Ritchie, David Banda, and Lourdes Leon outside the Kabbalah center on 7/5/08, thanks to Anthony Dixon for WENN.

Madonna wants you all to know she really, really isn’t planning on getting a divorce. She also isn’t involved with Alex Rodriguez, and thinks that newspapers and the internet are full of shit. Which is kind of funny, since that is what most newspaper and internet writers think of her.

She has issued this statement to People magazine.

In it, she says: “My husband and I are not planning on getting a divorce. I know Alex Rodriguez through Guy Oseary, who manages both of us. I brought my kids to a Yankee game. I am not romantically involved in any way with Alex Rodriguez. I have nothing to do with the state of his marriage or what spiritual path he may choose to study.”

“I have learned over the years not to take accusations and the many false reports about me very seriously. I also appreciate how fiction and fact seem to be perceived as one and the same by people who read both newspapers and the Internet.”

Given Madonna’s reputation for being extremely guarded and controlling about her public image, I actually thought the wording of this statement was interesting. Firstly, she is ‘not planning on getting a divorce’. This would fit in with reports that Madonna and Guy are not comitted to a divorce yet, for the sake of their children. I think that a custody agreement could get complicated given that Madonna’s eldest daughter Lourdes is not Guy’s biological daughter, but from a previous relationship.

She also says she is not romantically involved with Alex Rodriguez, not that she has ‘never’ been involved with him in the past, ever.

Alex’s wife Cynthia will be filing for divorce this Monday, according to her newly employed attourney Earle Lilley. Lilley leaves no doubt who is the cause of the divorce, telling ABC News affiliates that “The relationship with Madonna was the final straw for Mrs. Rodriguez.”

Note by Celebitchy: What amuses me about Madonna’s statement is that she’s not complaining about newspapers and the Internet being incorrect - she’s suggesting that people who read newspapers and the Internet are incapable of telling truth from fiction, as if it’s a personal failing to pay attention to the news at all. In a haughty appearance on Oprah defending her illegal adoption of David Banda, she was all too proud to announce that she doesn’t watch the news, go online for news, or read a newspaper. This is f’ing ripe from a woman who spends tens of thousands of dollars a month on water that’s been blessed. Because smart people don’t take in information from different sources and use critical reasoning skills. According to Madonna, smart people pay someone else to tell them what’s true.

And it looks like she’s teaching Alex Rodriguez to pay an authority figure to tell him what’s true too. His own personal trainer says he’s been brainwashed by Madonna. Whether she screwed him or not, she surely screwed his marriage by helping him buy into the same belief system.

Alex Rodriguez is shown leaving his apartment on 6/7/08. He stopped and signed an autograph for a little kid in a Yankee shirt.

Alex Rodriguez’s wife Cynthia is blaming Madonna – and Kabbalah – for the demise of her marriage. Cynthia has said she thinks Madonna is using the religion to convince Alex that they are soul mates, and has some sort of “mind control” over him. And while I’d normally laugh at stuff like that, it would absolutely not surprise me at all if Madonna were using Kabbalah for evil instead of good.

Pop icon Madonna is using kabbalah to brainwash Yankee star Alex Rodriguez into believing they are “soulmates,” the ballplayer’s estranged wife is telling friends. While Madonna’s flack has vehemently denied any hanky-panky, insisting the slugger and the singer “are just friends,” Cynthia Rodriguez is convinced otherwise. She has privately insisted to pals that the “Hard Candy” singer beguiled A-Rod by introducing him to the mystical Jewish teachings of kabbalah.

“I feel like Madonna is using mind control over him,” Cynthia Rodriguez told the friend. “I don’t recognize the man he’s become. He was a sweet, beautiful, loving husband and father. Today he’s very cold and calculating.”

“This all started with kabbalah,” said the friend. “Alex told Cynthia that he’d discovered that he’d been looking for his soul mate. And now, he said, he’d found her.”

Three weeks after the birth of their daughter Ella, A-Rod dropped a knee-wobbling bomb on his wife, the friend said. Alex “came to Cynthia and claimed their marriage was over,” the friend said. “That was news to her. She’d had no clue. She said, ‘I was devastated,’” the friend said. “I’ve been with him for 13 years,” she told her friend. “I stood beside him through all his struggles.”

[From the Daily News]

This isn’t the first time A-Rod’s been accused of philandering. He’s often been seen at strip clubs in New York and Vegas. In May 2007 the New York Post published a front page photo of Rodriguez with a Las Vegas stripper at a hotel in Toronto. A month later, Cynthia got a bit of bad publicity for wearing a tank top that said “Fuck You” to a Yankees game. Many thought the shirt was a public response to what was already going on in her marriage.

While I would never, ever defend Madonna, it sounds like the biggest problem is Alex Rodriguez’s attitude towards his marriage. And probably some private things within that marriage. I doubt Madonna has figured out some evil spell to cast on the guy – it sounds like he was looking for an affair, and he probably got one. I met A-Rod a few times when I was a teenager through a relative that had a business relationship with him. This was back when he was playing for the Mariners. He already had a “I’m better than everyone else” attitude about him, which I figured was kind of expected.

In other news related to this debacle, it sounds like Lenny Kravitz really has been a good guy who got a lot of crap for doing a decent thing. The Daily News reports that Cynthia went to Paris on A-Rod’s suggestion - along with the godparents of one of her children - who is also Alex’s trainer - and his wife and their daughter. Kravitz has been out of the country, and played a gig in Belgium last night. He loaned his place to Cynthia as an act of kindness. Many think A-Rod or one of his friends planted the idea in the press - after his suggestion that Cynthia go to Paris to get away from the paparazzi, photographers were already waiting for her at Kravitz’s place when she arrived.

Here’s Alex Rodriguez leaving his Manhattan apartment on his way to the New York Yankees vs. Texas Rangers game on Wednesday. Photographer: A. Miller. Header of A Rod, Cynthia, and their daughter Natasha at FAO Schwarz in NYC for a reading of his book ‘Out of the Ballpark’ on July 20, 2007. Images thanks to WENN.

An older photo of Alex Rodriguez out with his wife, Cynthia
Yesterday Maddona and her husband of seven years, Guy Ritchie, made a strained public outing in light of rumors that each of them has consulted divorce attorneys. There’s also a story in the upcoming issue of US Magazine that claims that Madonna, 49, has been carrying on an affair with NY Yankees player Alex Rodriguez, 32.

Madonna’s rep has of course denied that there’s any infidelity or plans for divorce. Madonna and Guy followed their standard operating procedure whenever there are rumors questioning the fitness of their marriage - they went out together and invited the paparazzi to document it. If they’re willing to do that they’re probably willing to work out whatever issues they have that boiled over to the press. They might just stay together.

The NY Daily News adds some credence to the story that Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were having an affair. They report that Rodriguez and his wife of five years, Cynthia, are separated. Cynthia and Alex have two daughters together, aged three and half and two months. There’s a questionable rumor that Cynthia is now having an affair with rocker Lenny Kravitz, and has joined him in Paris for a few days while he’s on tour. Her mother denies that’s true, and I can’t see the mother of a two month old jetting off to Paris for a new guy, but it’s possible. To make this story more complicated, Madonna dated Lenny Kravitz back in 1990.

Yankee star Alex Rodriguez and his wife, Cynthia, have split after about three months of problems in their marriage, a source with knowledge of the situation told the Daily News Wednesday…

“It’s true,” the source said of A-Rod’s separation from his wife of five years. “They’ve been having problems for about three months.”

Word of the couple’s marital strife comes less than three months after they expressed how “thrilled” they were with the April 21 birth of their daughter, Ella Alexander.

Rodriguez, 32, didn’t join his wife in Miami until 10 minutes after she gave birth, and spent only a day with her and their newborn before rejoining the Yankees.

Revelations of the couple’s not-so-great-nuptials came as new rumors surfaced on the Internet that Cynthia Rodriguez, 34, was having a fling with rocker Lenny Kravitz.

The gossip item on PerezHilton.com quoted a “family friend” claiming C-Rod had gone on a romantic getaway in Paris with Kravitz.

“She is not! I know that,” Cynthia Rodriguez’s mother, Evangeline Scurtis, told The News yesterday. Scurtis refused to discuss the status of her daughter’s relationship with Rodriguez, repeatedly saying, “No comment.”

Kravitz, 44, is in the middle of his “Love Revolution Tour” in Europe.

Coincidentally, A-Rod, Madonna and Kravitz all share the same manager, Guy Oseary.

[From NY Daily News]

If A-Rod has been visiting Madonna’s apartment late at night at least he’s not doing it while his wife waits at home thinking he’s out with the guys. There is speculation that Madonna and Guy have an open marriage, or maybe Madonna had a fling and is ready to go back to work on her marriage with the same focused zeal she approaches every other area of her life. She’ll whip it into shape just like she molds her body into a tiny powerhouse. I have a feeling this whole story will die down and it will soon be back to Madonna gyrating to her throbbing music, making us pay attention to her upturned crotch and astounding athletic ability instead of her troubled personal life.

Header image thanks to Lawrence Schwartzwald for Splash News.

The Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorce saga just got a hell of a lot more interesting. Madonna is said to have been visited late at night at her NY apartment by NY Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, 32, also known as A-Rod. US Weekly is set to detail their covert relationship in their upcoming issue. They have plenty of circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that 49 year-old Madonna is getting some on the side, and that it may have contributed to the demise of her marriage. What’s more is that A-Rod is married himself with two daughters, aged three and a half and two months, and this is not the first allegation that he’s cheated on his wife.

Us Weekly reports in its new issue, on newsstands tomorrow, that Madonna’s seven-year marriage to Guy Ritchie has stalled out – and the singer has been hosting late-night visits from New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez at her Central Park West apartment in New York City.

A ringless and grim-faced Ritchie, 39, arrived in New York City from London yesterday after several weeks apart from his family. A source tells Us that the $28-million-a-year Rodriguez, 32, has made numerous solo nighttime visits to Madonna, 49, at her spacious home and would sneak out “as late as midnight.” Says the source, “All the doormen are talking.”

Rodriguez attended Madonna’s April 30 NYC concert; the singer sat in his seats at a Yankees game on June 22 (it was the first time she ever was photographed at a Yankees game). Her son Rocco, 7, also sported Yankees gear on June 25 while playing in Central Park.

Rodriguez, married with two young daughters, has already faced speculation about cheating: In 2007, he and a stripper were reportedly spied in Toronto, Miami and Dallas.

[From US Weekly]

Guy Ritchie is now in NY and it’s not known if he’s met with Madonna or what their plans are. Neither of them is wearing their wedding band, but Madonna’s rep says she rarely wears hers anyway.

Cheating is wrong, but part of me is smiling and shaking my head that Madonna is hooking up with a hot baseball player 17 years her junior. He’s a married dad and should be off limits, no matter the state of their respective marriages. The rules for average people don’t apply to the mighty Madonna obviously. She’s done with her husband and she’s ready to get a taste of her old life again.

Madonna has a new video from “Hard Candy” out called “Give It 2 Me.” She struts around in flattering lighting wearing next to nothing. It was co-produced and co-written by Pharrel and I would much rather see that guy dancing around in his underwear, but unfortunately he keeps his shirt on the whole time. Can Madonna ever make a video that’s not about her? It seems like she should vary the formula she’s used for making videos since the beginning of her career in the 80s.

The music is pretty decent. Madonna knows what she’s doing by hooking up with younger talented music makers.

A-Rod is shown at the Raising Malawai fundraiser on 2/6/08. Madonna is shown leaving the gym on 6/4/08. Thanks to WENN.