Madonna breaks up with Jesus

Pop queen Madonna and her toyboy lover have parted ways after running out of things to talk about, it emerged on Wednesday night.

Madonna and fashion model Jesus Luz reportedly blamed the 28-year age difference between them and a lack of common interests for the split. The news came just days after Jesus was pictured frolicking with three bikini-clad young women in Brazil.

Their massive age gap was the obvious reason, with a source telling the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper: “The problem is as simple as it is obvious — it’s the age difference. How long could it last? How it even lasted a year seems a miracle to a lot of people. They are in such different places in their lives. They both benefited, but it’s pretty much over now.

“Or as Madonna told me, ‘we’ve just run out of things to talk about. It’s really pushing it for us to have common ground these days. We have Kabbalah, that’s about it’.”

The busy work schedules of the 51-year-old Madonna, ranked by Guinness World Records as the world’s most successful female recording artist of all time, and Jesus, 23, were also said to be a factor. “It was not only totally amicable but it was Luz who initiated the split,” A US report claimed on Wednesday.

The singer who has four children, 13-year-old Lourdes, Rocco, nine, Mercy, five, and four-year-old David agreed that it was time to put an end to their 13-month relationship. Madonna met Jesus during a photo-shoot. They began dating after her eight-year marriage to director Guy Ritchie, 41, which ended in divorce in October 2008.

But Jesus’s hairdresser mum, who is 14 years younger than Madonna, did not approve of the relationship. So smitten was Madonna that she reportedly spent $1,000 (Sh75,000) a week on Jesus’ English classes. Sources said at the time she was keen to teach the lad her native tongue to facilitate better conversation with him.

But it was obvious that she did not have plans of marrying him after she said on a popular US talkshow Late Night with David Letterman that she would rather be “hit by a train” than marry again. This statement is said to have caused a rift between the two.

Madonna was married to actor Sean Penn, 49, in 1985 but they divorced four years later. She then had a fling with film star Warren Beatty before romances with rapper Vanilla Ice, 42, and basketball player Dennis Rodman, 48. She then dated personal trainer Carlos Leon, 43, with whom she had daughter Lourdes. Madonna was married to Guy in 2000.

Madonna has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide and is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the US, with 64 million certified albums.

Number two

In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind The Beatles, on the “Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists”, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year.

Considered to be one of the most influential women in contemporary music, Madonna has been known for continually re-inventing both her music and image and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.