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Madonna's Stepmother Joan Ciccone Passes Away At 81: Exploring Singer's Complex Relationship With Her
Joan Ciccone, Madonna’s stepmother, has died at 81. Their complex relationship, shaped by family tensions and estrangement, influenced the singer’s early life and music.
Madonna is mourning the loss of her stepmother, Joan Ciccone, who passed away at age 81 on September 24 of “very aggressive cancer.” Joan married the singer’s father, Silvio ‘Tony’ Ciccone, in 1966—only three years after Madonna’s mother, also named Madonna, passed away at just 30 years old.
"Will be terribly missed by her family and friends whose lives she enriched with her enthusiasm, joy, and love,” an obituary posted online read.
Madonna reportedly did not have a very close relationship with her stepmother, at least not in the teenage years of her life, as Joan imposed strict household rules on the singer and her siblings in their already very traditional Catholic establishment. In a 2002 interview, the Like a Virgin singer shared that her stepmother ran a deeply religious household where she was forbidden from using tampons and expected to follow other similar rules.
At the time, these impositions fueled Madonna’s teenage rebellion and contributed as a factor that estranged her from her family for a while. However, Madonna also acknowledged in an interview with Larry King the same year that she may have been unfair in her treatment of her stepmother in her youth because, when she looks back at the circumstances from her past, she can see that Joane was trying.
The complicated relationship Madonna shared with Joan, and as a byproduct also with her father Tony, made its way into her music as she sang about abandonment, betrayal, and the raw emotions she struggled with as a kid as a result of her father’s decision to marry their househelp in her 2003 song Mother and Father.
In 2015, Madonna told Rolling Stone that she did not have much of a relationship with Joan, hence she lacked a role model in her life to look up to. It remains unclear whether Joan and Madonna mended their relationship later in their lives.
In addition to Silvio and Madonna’s six children, Joan and Silvio shared a daughter, Jennifer, 56, and a son, Mario, 55. The couple also welcomed a son named Joey in 1967, but he died shortly after birth because of a heart defect.
According to her obituary, Joan hails from Taylor, Michigan, and worked as a dental assistant after graduating from Henry Ford Community College. She was also a patron of a daycare, which she ran for more than 30 years.
In 1995, she and Silvio, 93, moved to Suttons Bay to establish and operate Ciccone Vineyard and Winery. Not watching her grandkids get married and have kids of their own is lamented as one of Joan's biggest unfulfilled wishes.
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