For being a “pop granny”, quote from Dagospia, Madonna didn’t do too badly. On Saturday night, in the enchanting setting of Copacabana, the beach in Rio de Janeiro, Lady Ciccone brought together 1.6 million fans for her last concert of the “Celebration Tour” which sanctifies the 40 years of her career. On August 16th Madonna will turn 66 and she will celebrate with her six children, two biological and 4 adopted, but in the meantime yesterday she took home a nest egg of 17.1 million reais, at today’s exchange rate three million and 310 thousand EUR. Not a bad fee for a performance that started 62 minutes late. Even the 75-year-old Roberto D’Agostino will agree.
Of course, entry was free and we are far from the 4.5 million fans that Rod Stewart brought together in 1993 (but it was New Year’s Eve) again on Copacabana beach, the largest audience ever recorded at a concert according to the Book of Guinness. The one the day before yesterday was, however, the fifth concert with the largest audience ever and the most crowded of those held by Madonna. A great satisfaction for this “pop granny” who had been “resuscitated” with Narcan (naloxone), a drug used mainly to save people who had overdosed on fentanyl, in her home in New York before being admitted to intensive care , on June 24th.
As always Madonna caused discussion. First of all for the approximately 4 million euros invested by the Carioca city and the state of Rio de Janeiro in organizing the show. «The government spent 20 million reais on this show, it’s absurd, the taxes are theft. People are dying of hunger, they are needy, there are no toilets in Brazil”, protested a boy with glasses live to the microphones of TV Globo who was following the show from Copacabana, immediately “cut” like any other Paolini. The sponsors: the Itaù bank, Heineken beer and the Deezer multimedia streaming service, covered the rest of the expenses, around 12 million euros in total.
At the Copacabana Palace, where she was welcomed like a queen, Madonna complained about the heat (faulty air conditioning?). Furthermore, she asked for a fence to be placed over her private pool so that the residents of the building next door to her, the famous Chopin, would not see her naked. “She’s not as demanding as other stars, it’s just that she feels exposed,” explained an employee of the Copacabana Palace, obviously requesting anonymity.
In the show, divided into seven acts corresponding to the various phases of her career, Madonna also showed that she enjoyed the simulation of an oral sex act staged by two handsome young men from samba schools. By all accounts, however, the involvement of the drag queen Pabllo Vittar and the Brazilian singer Anitta is much more credible.
In the end she is still the “grandma of pop”.
