May 27, 2004
Material Girl Nixes Israel Dates
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Has the Material Girl become the new target for terrorists? According to Britain's The Sun, Madonna cancelled the Israel leg of her Reinvention Tour after terrorists allegedly threatened to kill her and her children, Lourdes and Rocco, if she performed in Israel.
The threats reportedly came in the form of a series of poison-pen letters that were sent to Madonna's Los Angeles office. According to The Sun, Madonna first thought she was being targeted because of her kabbalah beliefs, but then she realized that she was being threatened because she represented all the things that these terrorists hate about the West. The terrorists were reportedly Palestinian, and Madonna took them seriously enough to cancel her three September concerts at Tel Aviv's Bloomfield Stadium -- her first concerts in Israel since 1993 -- because they knew intimate details about members of her staff.
But is it true?
Not quite, said Madonna's representative at Warner Bros. Records.
"The Israel dates were never confirmed," a rep from publicist Liz Rosenberg's office told The Journal. "She was never threatened."
Skipping the Holy Land, Madonna will show the rest of the world her new and improved self, made more refined, perhaps, through her very public association with the controversial Kabbalah Centre.
According to Madonna fan Denis Ferrara, who was quoted in Liz Smith's New York Post gossip column, the concerts of the Reinvention Tour will have "no crotch-grabbing, pointed bosoms or pointless profanity from the star."
Ferrara said Madonna was still an artist who wanted to amuse and engage, but, "She seems, however, to have put Shock -- for so long her random companion -- to bed. She never really needed him."
