Madonna’s stepmom Joan Ciccone dies at 81 after ‘brief encounter with very aggressive cancer’

Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, has died at the age of 81.

Ciccone was married to the pop queen’s father, Silvio, for 58 years.

“Joan Clare Ciccone passed away peacefully early in the morning of September 24th, 2024, after a brief encounter with a very aggressive cancer,” an online obituary stated. “She will be terribly missed by her family and friends whose lives she enriched with her enthusiasm, joy and love.”

Madonna was 8 years old when Joan married her father in 1966. Three years earlier, in December 1963, her mother, also named Madonna, passed away at the age of 30.

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Though Joan’s obituary stated she had “an instant family” after marry Silvio Ciccone, Madge, 66, had by her own account a difficult relationship with her stepmom as a child. In 2002, she told Larry King that she “sometimes suffered” during “moments of chaos” in her childhood.

“My mother died when I was little and that was difficult for me for a while,” she explained. “I mean truthfully, I didn’t accept my stepmother when I was growing up. In retrospect, I think that was really hard on her. She was [trying]… I’m very close to my father and I didn’t want to accept change in my life.”

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Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2015, she said she had “no role model” to look up to as a child because she “didn’t have any relationship with Joan.”

Little is known about Joan and Madonna’s relationship over the past few years. However, despite the Grammy winner’s comments about her stepmother, which describe a distant relationship, she and Joan may have had a reconciliation of sorts. A video shared on Instagram by a Madonna fan account appears to show Joan greeting her stepdaughter backstage during the Detroit stop on her MDNA tour in 2012.

Joan hugs the superstar and seems to say, “Thank you for a wonderful time.”

In another clip from that same night, Madonna tells her dad, who is with Joan, to “watch the whole show,” adding “artistic expression!” before they exit the backstage area.

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Joan shared two children — daughter Jennifer, 56, and son Mario, 55 — and six stepchildren with Silvio. The couple had a son, Joey, who was born in 1967 but passed shortly after due to a heart defect.

In 1995, Joan and Silvio started their own winery — Ciccone Vineyard and Winery — in Suttons Bay, Michigan.

“[Joan] did everything from helping to plant the vines to property maintenance, to harvesting,” according to her obituary. “She could often be found mowing the rows on her tractor. She also cooked for many of the tasting room events and became instant friends with many of the patrons.”

Later in life, Joan “took special joy in her grandkids later in life and with the grim cancer prognosis lamented that she was sad she would not see them marry and have kids of their own.”

Joan died a year and a half after Madonna’s brother, Anthony Ciccone, passed away from respiratory failure and throat cancer at age 66 in February 2023.

The Post has reached out to reps for Madonna.

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