Madonna Custody Battle: Is Guy Ritchie Using Unethical PR Tactics To Slam Singer?

Madonna is a bad mother. Even Lourdes doesn’t want anything to do with Madonna. Madonna is so mean that she wants to send her son, Rocco, to military school. Madonna treats her son, Rocco, like a “trophy child.” These are all variants of headlines that have appeared over the past couple weeks. What’s interesting about the stories under these headlines is that all the information seems to come from “sources” close to Guy Ritchie.

The media has always been unfriendly to Madonna, so many sources, especially tabloids, will eat up any negative information about her. Guy Ritchie knows this. After his divorce with Madonna was announced in 2008, he was quoted by “sources” ridiculing Madonna as a sex partner. The Daily Mail was one of those sources.

“When they did find time to make love, it was like ‘cuddling up to a piece of gristle’, Ritchie is said to have told friends.”

The article quotes Guy Ritchie’s other “friends” as saying that Madonna was too obsessed with Kabbalah, she was mean to him, etc. Around the same time, an article in the Daily Mirror appeared that said Guy Ritchie didn’t want any of Madonna’s money, that he was a great dad who just cared about his kids.

“Guy Ritchie has insisted he does not want a penny of Madonna’s £300 million fortune from their divorce settlement. The film director could have claimed up to £50 million — but his only demand will be full access to their three children.”

Despite all the “friends” of Guy Ritchie (possibly just Guy Ritchie’s PR team) claiming he didn’t want any of her money, Guy ended up with $92 million from the divorce — one of the biggest settlements ever. It’s important to keep in mind that if a woman took that much money from a man, she would be completely shot down by the media. When Heather Mills settled for $50 million with Paul McCartney, the backlash she received was incredible. However, there was no such backlash with Guy Ritchie. In fact, many in the media cheered him on.

In fact most of the articles about Madonna’s divorce around that time basically made Guy Ritchie out to be a saint. The Telegraph and other sources just happened to get their hands on pictures of Guy Ritchie meeting his sons, Rocco and David, at the airport in November of 2008, before a custody arrangement had been agreed on. Many suspected that the photos looked completely staged.

Let’s fast forward seven years later. In addition to several articles bashing Madonna and praising Guy Ritchie (mostly based on the same “friends”), the New York Post published an article this weekend on why Madonna’s kids want nothing to do with her — a notion that is completely ridiculous given how Madonna and daughter Lourdes appear with each other in several recent pictures and visit with each other during her breaks at the University of Michigan.

There was one very interesting quote from the New York Post ‘s article.

“Insiders say her two teenagers, Rocco and Lourdes, are fed up with the Material Mom’s mixed messages — and they’re acting out their frustration. They ‘crave stability,’ says a Guy Ritchie source, but their mother’s relentless touring schedule has made that difficult.”

Once again, a major news outlet uses a Guy Ritchie “source” to determine how Madonna is sending mixed messages, a notion that may have some truth — but that’s besides the point. Lourdes currently attends the University of Michigan and lives on campus, so it’s doubtful she is affected by Madonna’s touring schedule. Guy Ritchie’s PR team has crossed a line here by bringing Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, into his disagreements with the singer.

Madonna may not be perfect; she may be controlling, embarrassing, and even downright crude at times. But we don’t really know what is going on behind the scenes with her family. Guy Ritchie’s desperate and unethical PR tactics may continue to woo over the court of general public and the media, but will hinder his custody case in an actual court of law.