understand the reasons that led Madonna’s brother to death

Anthony Ciccone, the older brother of superstar Madonna, died on Sunday at the age of 66. His death, despite not having the cause officially revealed, was confirmed by musician Joe Henry, who is married to the singer’s sister, Melanie Ciccone, through a tribute on his Instagram profile, this Sunday.

Joe called him a “complex character”. For many years, Anthony struggled with alcoholism and even lived on the streets for seven years in Michigan, USA, where Madonna grew up.

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Anthony maintained a troubled relationship with his family. In 2011, he declared to the Daily Mail that Madonna and the rest of the family didn’t care about him. “I am a zero in their eyes – a non-person. I’m a disgrace. If I froze to death, my family probably wouldn’t know or wouldn’t care about it for six months”, he said, in the same interview in which he said that his father “would be very happy” if he died of hypothermia and that he and the pop star ” never loved each other”.

In a 2014 interview, however, while living under a bridge, Anthony didn’t hesitate to reveal that his sister’s favorite song was “Like A Prayer”. At the time, reporters around the world launched a search for “Madonna’s homeless brother” through the streets of Michigan, trying to interview him.

A year before the “Like a prayer” statement, in 2013, he was arrested after disobeying a police officer in a fight in a public restroom in northern Michigan. At the time, he had nine stitches on his forehead. Police said that at the time of his arrest, his blood alcohol level was 0.40, which is five times the legal limit in the state.

Anthony lost his job at his father Tony and stepmother Joan’s family vineyard after he was found drinking wine directly from the vats.

In 2017, after participating in a rehabilitation program considered “revolutionary”, another brother of Anthony and Madonna, Christopher Ciccone, even claimed that Anthony had recovered from alcoholism. At the time, Madonna had already disclosed that she had paid her brother the bill for a two-month stay at another clinic in Texas, and according to family friends, she made repeated efforts to get close to him.

In recent years, Anthony, always controversial, or, as his brother-in-law Joe put it, “complex”, has stayed out of the spotlight of the international press.

This Monday, after three days of silence, the Queen of Pop spoke publicly about her brother’s death. With an old photo, she wrote: “Thank you for ‘blowing my mind’ when I was a little girl and introducing me to Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Buddhism, Taoism, Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, Jack Kerouac, ‘expanded thinking outside from the box’. You planted me so many important seeds…”

She concluded with a heart symbol.