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Posted: 19 October 2006 - Fropm Reuters Via Yahoo! News
NBC announced today that it had 'revised' Madonna's Confessions Tour for broadcast on Wednesday 22 November.
A source said that Madonna's performance of Live To Tell would be included but in a 'revised' version which will not actually show Madonna on the cross. NBC themselves did not actually say what they have revised.

After weeks of controversy, NBC has decided not to show pop star Madonna suspended from a giant cross and wearing a crown of thorns when the network airs a special of her 'Confessions' tour, a source close to the organization of the event said on Thursday.
The source spoke after NBC announced it had revised the two-hour concert special, which airs November 22, but did not elaborate on what changes would be made.
The source said the portion of the 'Live to Tell' song in which Madonna sings suspended from a giant cross and wearing a crown of thorns will not be shown in the broadcast. Instead, cameras will cut to other shots or images while Madonna is on the cross. She steps away from the cross to finish the song.
The special was filmed during her performance at Wembley Stadium in London during her 'Confessions' tour.
Madonna, who is an executive producer of the special, initially insisted that her appearance on the cross, which had been a controversial centerpiece of her stage performance, be included in the NBC special.
But after complaints from Christian groups, a number of NBC affiliate stations expressed uneasiness to the network about carrying the broadcast if it included Madonna singing from the cross.
Madonna, who has been making headlines over her efforts to adopt a Malawi orphan, has defended her mock crucifixion scene, saying it was not meant to be 'anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous.'
A spokeswoman for the pop star could not immediately be reached for comment.


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Welcome Davie Banda Mwale Ciccone Ritchie
Posted: 19 October 2006 - From The Arizona Republic
Madonna has decided to give her adopted son husband Guy Ritchie's surname.
Malawian baby David will keep his full surname Banda Mwale as his middle names, and will also take his new mother's maiden name Ciccone as a third middle name.
Madonna, 48, made the decision out of respect for David's family heritage, but also to welcome into her own family.
Yesterday David's father Yohane returned to his work spraying potato crops, for which he earns 54 pence a day.
Speaking from crop fields in blistering temperatures, Yohane said: 'I'm not really missing David because we have agreed with Madonna that he will visit us here in three or four years time.'
'I am not asking for anything from Madonna, but when David grows up and is brought here and sees our poverty, he will certainly ask his mum to help.'
David's father took the 13-month-old baby to an orphanage after his mother died and he could no longer afford to look after him properly.
While Madonna attended the gym yesterday she sent an assistant to buy clothes for David and demanded video footage be sent to her mobile phone so she could approve the outfits.
The singer and her director husband Guy already have a son together, six-year-old Rocco, and Madonna has a ten-year-old daughter Lourdes from her relationship with personal trainer Carlos Leon.

NBC are wimps,but I'm glad that the concert special wasn't cancelled altogether.It's cool that it airs the night before Thanksgiving.

Hopefully Madonna will pull this project so the public doesnt have to watch her lip sync in a leotard.

i didn't realize the public has to watch it. There are other networks to watch and other things to do during those two hours of november 22.

yeah your right, im sure Grey's Anatomy will carry the night, at least that show is realastic.

lazycrockett can't wait to see this special

SoulAlive said:

hopefully the turkey, not the old bird, will put me to sleep.
[Edited 10/20/06 1:09am]

let's prays for a miracle:

LOL Marvin looks cute

lazycrockett said:

notice madonna's black hands!

lazycrockett said:

That is very dissapointing. I wonder if when they release it on DVD, there will be an alternate take of it (along with whatever songs they edit out). I really hope they include "You Thrill Me" because I saw it on Youtube and it was hot. A better produced, sounding verison will be great!

Im surprised Madonna would even give it to them to show on TV after everything thats gone on. But im sure this will go to DVD, between NBC and their Specials they are all ratings disasters, especially the day before ThanksGiving.

lastdecember said:

If they can't get gold out of Madonna....They should be ashamed. I mean, people watched Cher's concert, and that was in the spring!

VinnyM27 said:

According to sources the DVD will be unedited because it is under full artistic Control of Lady Madonna

I dig Madge, but this is the second time she's buckled to pressure from conservative groups ("American Life" video, anyone?). Gotta say I'm disappointed.

lastdecember said:

it is a proven fact any show Madonna appears one wins it's spot in the ratings. Between her fans and the people who wanna see what she is going to do. And if she can be front page news and on every news station in the middle of a war, twice and both Gulf Wars, than you know NBC has no fear of people not tuning in to see her.

i'm willing to bet money that the bit with the muslim woman in a cage, who then frees herself from that cage and takes off her hijab, will not be edited out.

its always amazing to me how one act can be deemed inappropriate or offensive but another of the same stature goes overlooked.

Ace said:

it's not Madge it's NBC. they fixed her contract so she can't back out and still get paid.

ehuffnsd said:

Proof?

Ace said:

Do you have "proof" to the contrary?

PapaSmurf said:

Actually, I did read something to the contrary. Regardless, it's cash she doesn't need; she should've pulled the show and walked.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Under pressure from Christian conservative groups accusing pop star Madonna of sacrilege, NBC said Thursday it removed footage from her upcoming prime-time concert special of the singer performing while suspended on a giant cross.

Madonna had insisted that the mock crucifixion, a centerpiece of her "Confessions" world tour staged while she performed the hit song "Live to Tell," be included in the two-hour special set to air on NBC on November 22.

But socially conservative organizations organized a campaign urging NBC affiliate stations to refuse to carry the special if the crucifix stunt remained in the show.

After weeks of uncertainty, the network said it decided it would not show the opening portion of the "Live to Tell" performance in which she sings suspended from a giant mirrored cross while wearing a crown of thorns.

Instead, cameras will cut away to other shots while Madonna is on the cross, then cut back to the singer when she steps down to finish the song.

"You hear the song, but you're not seeing her on the cross," one network source told Reuters. The special was filmed during her performance at Wembley Stadium in London.

Madonna's New York-based spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said the 48-year-old entertainer, an executive producer of the special, ultimately acquiesced to the revision of the broadcast but suggested the singer was not happy about it.

"She wanted it in, and they wanted it out," Rosenberg, a Warner Bros. Records executive, told Reuters. "You won't see Madonna on a crucifix. That element of the song is no longer in the show. How they came to that conclusion I really don't know."

Madonna's use of the cross in her concerts drew protests from the Roman Catholic Church and Russian Orthodox Church during her performances in Rome and Moscow, where leaders of the clergy condemned the act as blasphemy.

Madonna issued a statement last month insisting her act was "neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous. Rather it is a plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole.

"I believe if Jesus were alive today, he would be doing the same thing," she said, adding that her specific intent was to bring attention to the extreme poverty in Africa.

Madonna has been making headlines with her efforts to adopt a motherless year-old boy from Malawi. (Latest story)

The controversy over Madonna's mock crucifixion is not the first time the Material Girl has drawn the ire of religious groups for her use of Christian imagery. In 1989, the video for her hit song "Like a Prayer" featured the scantily clad singer cavorting in front of burning crosses and statues crying blood.

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Ace said:

the thing about contracts is they can sue you or come after you if you break them. in the past she's been able to walk away like she did with CBS and the ReInvention Tour or Pepsi and the Like A Prayer video. However this is something she cannont. NBC wants a product they can use to boost ratings. they protected that product by not leaving in the walkaway clauses she's had in the past.

i have a feeling she might also loose the right to release a DVD if she walked away
[Edited 10/20/06 14:40pm]

ehuffnsd said:

I would guess it went a little somethin' like this...

Ace said:

probably more like Madge we let us air or you don't get the DVD.

Madge said ok go ahead then i can market the DVD see what was too hot for tv.

sallysassalot said:

too subtle for most American's to even notice.

ehuffnsd said:

Nonsense. They couldn't air an edit of the show she didn't approve and they have nothing to do with her ability to release a DVD from the tour.

Ace said:

yes they do.

Do you see a copy of RIT or Blonde Ambition lying around your local video store?

Nope. CBS owns the rights to RIT til it is broadcasted. Pioneer owns the rights for BA which they put out on their Laser Disc format but since they don't have a DVD department we don't have it today.

ehuffnsd said:

Madonna owns the footage and, if she and CBS could not come to terms over the content of the broadcast, she is free to walk and release whatever she damn well pleases.