In her deeply moving essay Funeral Rites, Madonna steps away from the glittering image of the pop icon to reveal her most vulnerable self. The piece, published in February 2025 through CR Fashion Book and curated by Carine Roitfeld with the artistic vision of Steven Klein, reads like a poetic confession. Here, Madonna explores the way death has shaped her identity, intertwining personal grief, spiritual musings, and metaphors of love into one of the most intimate writings of her career.
The essay opens with a formative memory that has haunted Madonna since childhood — the loss of her mother. She recalls standing at the casket, pressing her lips to her mother’s for the last time. That tender yet devastating farewell planted both sorrow and beauty in her soul, leaving her with a lifelong fear of abandonment. In those early years, she clung tightly to her father and even expressed a desire to be buried with him should he pass, an early glimpse into how profoundly she associated love with loss. Cemeteries, rather than places of dread, became sacred spaces where she sought closeness with the departed.
As life unfolded, grief became a constant companion. Friends, lovers, and companions faded from her world — sometimes through death, sometimes through distance. For Madonna, each departure was its own kind of death, one that she mourned with private rituals of letting go. She describes these farewells not as moments of despair but as ceremonies that allowed her to bury her fear before it consumed her. Even the grief of strangers called to her, leading her to wander graveyards in quiet reflection, finding connection in the silent company of those long gone.
Her meditation then widens to embrace the spiritual dimension of loss. Recalling the words of Sister Teresa, Madonna reflects on the belief that all souls are “married to God.” In her prose, she imagines herself as both “the bride of Christ” and “the bride of love,” symbolic roles that gave her comfort and a place to rest her secrets. These ideas reassured her that even in the face of loss, none of us are truly abandoned — we are bound to something greater, a force that carries us beyond the temporal limits of life.
Ultimately, Funeral Rites is more than an essay about mourning; it is Madonna’s lyrical meditation on the eternal dance between love and death. Through her words, she transforms grief into a profound romance with memory, faith, and the unseen world that surrounds us. For fans and readers, the piece offers a rare glimpse at the humanity beneath her legend — a woman who, despite her power and influence, continues to wrestle with the same fragility of existence that binds us all.
