Key Insights

• Podcast Appearance: Madonna discussed her family dynamics during her first podcast on On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
• New Album: The Queen of Pop is set to release her 2026 studio album featuring a song titled “Fragile.”
• Family Forgiveness: The song was inspired by her late brother Christopher Ciccone, highlighting themes of forgiveness.
• Personal Reflection: Madonna shared her journey of reconciling with her estranged brother before his passing.

Madonna is getting candid about family drama.

The Queen of Pop spoke out during her first-ever podcast appearance on On Purpose with Jay Shetty about her 2026 studio album, and an upcoming song she wrote for it called “Fragile.”

During the conversation, she revealed it was inspired by her estranged late brother Christopher Ciccone, who died in 2024, and whom she hadn’t spoken to for years and considered her “enemy.”

Keep reading to find out more…

“It’s important to find a way to forgive even people that you perceive as your biggest enemies. For a really long time, it was my brother who died recently,” she said.

“I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like…you’re the closest to. They’re your greatest ally and they turn on you. The people that hurt you the most are the people that you love the most.”

“Having to forgive my brother or knowing that I had to forgive my brother was, you know, it’s like your ego dances around it like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it. I’ll get to calling him up or talking to him or being his friend or helping him.’ But eventually I did.”

“If someone you love deeply betrays you and does something that shows that they have no consciousness in that moment that they made that choice to do that, it’s a bitter pill for me to swallow. I can’t speak for everyone, but I imagine that lots of people feel this way,” she went on to say.

“For my brother, I didn’t speak to him for, you know, for years, years, and years. And it was him being ill um and reaching out to me and saying, ‘I need your help.’ And me having that moment like, ‘Am I going to help my enemy?’ You know, that’s how it felt. And I just did…and I felt so relieved. It was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand even if he was dying and saying, ‘I love you and I forgive you.’ That was really important,” Madonna explained.