'Treated us like simpletons': Pedro Almodóvar criticises Madonna over documentary

Oscar-winning Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar has written “a settling of scores” in a long diary entry written during the coronavirus lockdown, which accuses Madonna of treating him and actor Antonio Banderas as “simpletons”, and not asking permission to use footage of them in a documentary.

In the post published in translation on IndieWire, Almodóvar recalls first meeting Madonna on the set of the film Dick Tracy, and then later in Madrid during her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour. “Aside from myself, she was only interested in meeting one other guest, Antonio Banderas,” he said of the latter meeting, with Banderas having recently acted in Almodóvar’s film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. “Hollywood (and Madonna) had fallen in love with him.”

Madonna had the flamenco party Almodóvar had arranged for her filmed for the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (also known as In Bed With Madonna). “She didn’t ask for permission to use our images, and she even dubbed me, because my English mustn’t have been that good,” Almodóvar complains. “I don’t mind if this seems like a settling of scores – if it had been the other way round (me filming Madonna and her team and making a film with all that material which I would then premiere around the world), I would have taken such a hit in the form of a lawsuit; I’d still be recovering from it. Madonna treated us like simpletons and I had to say it one day.”

He said Madonna decided on the seating plan and placed Banderas’s then-wife Ana Leza far away from him, with herself by his side. “Antonio’s harassment was one of the main storylines and she, obviously, edited in how she dispatched Ana Leza with only one sentence. At the end of the dinner, Ana dared to get close to our table and told the divine blonde sarcastically, ‘I see you like my husband, it doesn’t surprise me, all women like him, but I don’t mind because I am very modern.’ To which Madonna replied: ‘Get lost.’ All this may seem frivolous, and it is.”

He also says Madonna also asked Banderas, who didn’t speak English then, a provocative question via Almodóvar. “Ask him, she told me again, if he likes women to hit him … Antonio made the same gesture, which meant neither/nor, but that he was at the service of ladies’ desires.”

Madonna has not responded to his post. The Guardian has contacted her UK representatives for comment.