Madonna May Be Headed To Divorce Court
Just when you thought it was safe to come out after the Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce, it seems there's another aging rocker's split to wallow in.
The marriage of Madonna and British film maker Guy Ritchie was always as unlikely as it was tempestuous, observes CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. And now, he says -- if you believe the headlines -- it's becoming very publicly unstuck.
"More telling" than media reports, Early Show entertainment contributor and People magazine Executive Editor Jess Cagle said Saturday, "is the fact that the Madonna camp is issuing a 'no comment.' I think, if it wasn't true, or if something wasn't going on, they would have issued a denial."
Behind the headlines, Phillips says, "the usual nameless friends" are quoted saying the couple "had simply drifted apart" and "were leading increasingly separate lives."
That things were a little tense was obvious when the couple were in India earlier this year. From the looks of tabloid photos of their visit, it would have been hard for two people to be further apart in a car, Phillips remarked.
Photos: Madonna's "Raising Malawi" Tribeca Premiere
Madonna, 49, and Ritchie, 39, married seven-and-a-half years ago after meeting at a dinner party given by the pop star Sting.
Ritchie was an up and coming film director making movies about London's east end crime scene like 1998's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."
However unlikely the pairing, the marriage did have its good years, Phillips points out. She brought daughter Lourdes, now eleven, into the marriage and the couple had Rocco, now seven. A third child, two-year-old David, was adopted from Malawi in Africa.
But the couple's different worlds and interests seem to have pulled them in opposite directions, Phillips says. Madonna had her career, while Ritchie's seemed stuck after its early success.
She became increasingly involved in various causes - including anti-poverty and AIDS awareness - and devoted to the Kabbalah Centre's controversial form of Jewish mysticism.
Now the heavy-artillery lawyers have. reportsd say, been called in: She's using Fiona Shackleton, the divorce lawyer McCartney hired to represent him in his split from Heather Mills. Ritchie is apparently being represented by London law firm Forsters.
In addition to custody of the children, the couple will likely be negotiating over their properties in London, the English countryside, New York and Los Angeles.
Madonna's fortune is an estimated 600 million dollars. The couple is said to have no pre-nuptial agreement -- although that doesn't count much in British law, Phillips notes. The speculation is that Ritchie will come away with about a hundred million, for anyone who's counting. But he is also said to be hoping the marriage can be saved.