Madonna and me: my life as a material girl

The Queen of Pop sent a generation of Voguers into panic this week after a stay in intensive care forced her to postpone her tour. Helen Brown charts a life growing up with Madonna, from mimicking the ‘Like a Prayer’ choir as a schoolgirl in Leicester Cathedral to dancing in gay bars and deciding whether to age (dis)gracefully

Madonna takes a run to London's Hyde Park in 1987 (PA)

Is Madonna dead?” My phone’s been pinging with this question for 48 hours. I have to keep reminding my friends that although I’ve often written about my “relationship” with Madonna over the past 20 years, I don’t actually know her. I’m just a fan. I don’t know any more than they do about the “serious bacterial infection” that meant she was found unresponsive at her New York flat and admitted to the ICU on Saturday. And, like other fans around the world, I was knocked weirdly off-kilter by the news.

In comparison to so many pop stars, whose celebrity lifestyles see them tumbling into addiction and illness, Madonna is famously health conscious. Superfit. I stood a few metres from her at the launch of her first children’s book and, though she was tiny and dressed in a floral summer frock, her arm muscles were so intensely yoga-toned that she looked like a superhero undercover at a village fete. After a short stay in hospital, the 64-year-old pop icon was reported to be back at home on Thursday and, according to her longtime manager Guy Oseary, “a full recovery is expected”. But it’s clearly been serious enough for her to postpone the career-showcasing “Celebration” tour, which was due to kick off in Vancouver in mid-July and reach a four-night run at London’s O2 Arena in October.

Although none of my friends had bought tickets for the tour before Madonna’s medical emergency, once the world knew she was out of danger my phone started to fill with a different type of text: “We should go, right?” “I know the swanky tix are £1,307 but we could get the £47 ones?” “Come on, girls! One last big Madge boogie? Can we dig out the crosses and lace ribbons?!” And ohhhh, there came the whack of what Madonna has meant to me and so many of Gen X’s girls and LGBTQ+ers. The muscle memory of first wrapping those trademark ribbons around my wrists, piling my hair on top of my head and pouting into the mirror to “Get into the Groove”. Hoping to channel just a little of the singer’s electric, autonomous cool. The push/pull gaze that said “come on” and then “I dare you”.