Madonna interview with Paola Jacobbi for Vanity Fair Italia

Madonna is currently on the cover for this week’s Vanity Fair Italia.
The photoshoot by the incredible Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott was shot during the “Truth or Dare by Madonna” video commercial.

Here is the full interview, translated by XXL…

Vanity Fair: You said that for this fragrance you were inspired by your mother, also named Madonna and passed over when you were still a child. What kind of woman was she?
Madonna: Una vera mamma (a real mother she says in Italian looking at me in the eyes searching for complicity). She was sweet, feminine, music oriented and welcoming. She would always use the perfume Fracas by Robert Piguet. It’s a smell fixed in my memory: I associate it to my early mornings spent between my parents in their bed.

Vanity Fair: You seem to be absolutely fearless.
Madonna: That’s not true: there are things that I am afraid of too

Vanity Fair: For instance?
Madonna: Not knowing things, not having control over what’s going around me. Not being able to predict what’s to come. And also the fact that the world is full of ignorant people ridden with prejudice, this is what frightens me the most.

Vanity Fair: How can we change that?
Madonna: Starting smelling better with Truth or Dare for example. Okay that was the silly answer. The serious one that there will be a better world only after all prejudice has been eradicated. I cannot foresee what will happen in my life because the world is full of ignorant people. We should destroy the prejudices if we want to live in a better world.

Vanity Fair: In regard to this I know you’re in favour of gay marriage. Vanity Fair is doing a campaign throughout Italy in support of this. Why do you think this is such a tremendous cause requiring both straight and gay people to fight together?
Madonna: Because it’s a way to show that we have compassion and comprehension towards all and that we believe and stand by love and freedom.

Vanity Fair: Besides having had us dancing and enjoying ourselves to your music, throughout the years do you think your career has contributed to spread a message through the songs? And if it did which one would it be?
Madonna: Express yourself, which is the title of one of my songs but also the motto best representing me.

Vanity Fair: In which way do you think the years have changed you?
Madonna: More than the years per se I think my children have made me a much more patient and tolerant person. Thanks to my children I am becoming a better woman. Now I am less serious, I have an elastic view of life. I am more permissive

Vanity Fair: What about physically?
Madonna: Last year I learnt to ski. It was a gorgeous experience. I had never done it before. My children are very good on snowboards and I was jealous. So the next step will be the snowboard. I hope to avoid the paparazzi though, because I will fall over a lot!

Vanity Fair: You design a teenage clothing collection, Material Girl with your daughter Lourdes. How is it working with her?
Madonna: It is nice. Lourdes has got really clear ideas. She knows what she likes. She has a sense of style. Sometimes we disagree on things and we start arguing. For instance I don’t like her shaving her head, much less her smoking or things like that. But I do like her look and it’s amusing to discuss it together. Even when I am going out or I am choosing clothes for myself, I ask her opinion. She criticises me a lot but often she is right.

Vanity Fair: You’re a role model for many women. Who was one to you?
Madonna: Frida Kahlo. She wasn’t a conventional beauty but she had an amazing face and every time she would draw a self portrait she wasn’t intent on making herself appear more beautiful or different from reality. She wouldn’t erase the moustache or the heavy eyebrows. Everyone else would have just made themselves look better or more in tune with aesthetical canons. I think that what makes a woman beautiful is pride in being herself and not trying to adapt herself to anyone else’s tastes. We should never apologise for being what we are, for being how we are.

Vanity Fair: What time do you wake up in the morning?
Madonna: It depends on my schedule for the day. Typically I wake up with my children when they go to school and then I slip again into bed for a few hours since I usually go to bed pretty late at night. When it’s impossible for me to do a second round, I am in a bad mood for the whole day. As soon as I am up, I wash my face with some cold water and I put some really burning Japanese eyedrops which helps you to wake up even when you don’t feel like it.

Vanity Fair: And before going to bed?
Madonna: I brush my teeth and I remove my make up. In my whole life I have never gone to bed without doing that. Not once.

Vanity Fair: Since you’re officially now into cosmetics, do you have in mind a product not existing today you could launch?
Madonna: I think that nowadays we can find pretty much everything. But I will think about it, let’s talk about it next time.

Vanity Fair: Just a moment ago you met one of your fans. What strikes you the most?
Madonna: Their loyalty! I never take that for granted, trust me.

Vanity Fair: We’re waiting for you in Italia then. It is rumoured that the mayor of Florence is arranging a private nocturnal visit of the Uffizi for you.
Madonna: Wow!