News

Andy Cohen guest-edited EW’s latest issue so of course he had to talk to his favorite pop star Madonna about her massive Rebel Heart tour, which kicks off Sept. 9 in Montreal. By her own estimation, the Material Girl has been spending 10 to 12 hours a day prepping for the string of gigs—a schedule so rigorous that an aide follows her to make sure she stays nourished. “I call her the food police,” Madonna tells Cohen. “ ‘Are you eating? Did you drink enough water?’ I’m like, ‘Bitch, get off my pole!’”

Speaking of poles, Cohen gets the scoop about the dancing nuns on stripper poles that Madonna teased in Rebel Heart’s trailer. “I just like the juxtaposition,” she says of the risqué routine. “I’m very immersed in deconstructing the concept of sexuality and religion and how it’s not supposed to go together, but in my world it goes together.”

As for the show itself, Madonna hasn’t revealed much, but she offers some insight about how she balances her setlist with greatest hits like “Vogue” and her new Rebel Heart material. “Of course, the thing Im most excited about doing is my new stuff, because I haven’t done it yet and it’s fresh,” she tells Cohen. “But I realize that people want to hear my older stuff, so for me it’s always a tricky balance trying to keep some kind of continuity, not only with sound, sonically, but also thematically … a lot of times I have to take the songs and turn them inside out and make them more ironic than straightforward.”

Cohen also inquires about whether Madonna’s 14-year-old son Rocco would appear on the tour. “I think he’s probably gonna work behind the scenes,” she says. “He’s not interested in performing on stage with me right now. There’s way cooler things. Your mom is not that cool when you’re 14.”

Stay tuned to EW for more scoop from Cohen’s interview with Madonna, along with other juicy stories from his guest-edited issue.

A version of this story appeared in Entertainment Weekly issue #1376, on newsstands Friday, August 7.

EW.com