The iconic Blond Ambition Tour, by Madonna, turns 30 this month. Produced from records like a prayer (1989) and I'm Breathless (1990) and the single “Vogue” (which also “thirty” in March), the tour was immensely successful and caused a lot of controversy with its sexual content and religious symbolism – and there was also a memorable episode shown in the documentary In Bed with Madonna, released in 1991: a big dinner for Madonna, in Madrid, in which Pedro Almodóvar was host.
During social isolation, the Spanish filmmaker has been writing texts in which he recalls episodes from his life. Recently, the website IndieWire published one of them translated into English, in which Almodóvar tells the “other side” of that event, among other memories.
In the film, the dinner is covered in a humorous summary, showing Almodóvar excited about Madonna's visit to Spain with Blond Ambition – and Madonna hitting on the actor Antonio Banderas in the face of his then wife, Ana Leza.
According to the director, he met Madonna again at that dinner after meeting her in 1989 on the set of Dick Tracy, film in which she acted and for which she composed the soundtrack I'm Breathless. The singer organized the tables at which the guests – friends and actors from Almodóvar's films and the diva's dancers – would sit and removed Leza de Banderas. Madonna defined that she would sit between the actor and the filmmaker. The film crew In Bed with Madonna was also present.
“I say this because, when the documentary premiered, the harassment that Antonio suffered was one of the main stories and she [Madonna], obviously, cut the part where she sent Ana Leza away with just one sentence,” he wrote.
“At the end of dinner, Ana dared to approach our table and said to the divine blonde sarcastically: 'I see you like my husband. That doesn't surprise me, all the women like him, but I don't mind, because I'm quite modern'.”
According to Almodóvar, Madonna responded: “Get lost.” He then says that the pop diva treated his guests as “simpletons” and did not ask for permission to use the images.
The filmmaker went on to say that the singer asked him to ask Antonio, who didn't speak English at the time, if the actor liked “hitting women”. Baffled, Banderas replied: “I am a Spanish gentleman and I do everything a lady asks me to do.”
“For me, it was a silent and eloquent gesture. But Madonna wanted more. Ask him, she asked me again, if she likes women hitting him. I translated for him (…) and Antonio made the same gestures, which meant neither one nor the other/no, but that he was at the disposal of the ladies’ desires.”
“I say this because, first of all, it's all true,” he wrote, “and it was the funniest moment of the night, but she didn't think it was appropriate to include it [in the film]. There had to be a pandemic for the world to know what that dinner really was like.”
