The Next Best Thing...

The butler did it - sued Madonna, that is, for almost $200,000 after being fired.

Eric Martin-Ienco told the tabloids that he and his wife both kept house for the Material Girl, but when Madonna informed the pair, their services wouldn't be needed for the summer because she was returning to the United States before her baby is born in September, the wife resigned.

So Madonna fired the husband too, and gave him three days to get out. He is seeking damages, saying she'd promised him work for two years, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

"Suddenly Anna was told she would have to leave the house immediately but I could stay on, which was ludicrous," he told the Mirror tabloid.

"Then I got another call saying I was no longer needed and that we both had to get out of the house before Madonna arrived home on Sunday."

The news comes as another British tabloid reports that the pop superstar was in crisis talks with the father of her unborn child.

The singer flew into London on Sunday to discuss her future with Guy Ritchie, director of the British gangster film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, after he refused to move to Los Angeles, the Express said.

"Madonna issued a statement last week saying there was no prospect of marriage between her and Guy," it quoted a source close to Ritchie as saying.

"But it's fair to say that would never have happened if he had demonstrated more enthusiasm for the idea."

Madonna, 41, arrived from New York with Lourdes, her 3-year-old daughter with a former personal trainer, and met Ritchie, 31, at her rented London mansion before driving away in his car for "crisis talks," the tabloid said.