If you walk along the King’s Road on your way to Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, there is every chance you may spot a famous face.
Chelsea, part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in south-west London, is home to the rich and famous, with fancy boutiques, luxury cars and multi-million pound houses aplenty.
It is also home to Chelsea Football Club, one of the most successful English teams in the Premier League era, and a side that has a fanbase that includes plenty of star-studded names, such as Steve McQueen, Matt Damon, Timothee Chalamet and Gordon Ramsay.
Even Bill Clinton, the former U.S. president, is said to be a fan, having attended games at Stamford Bridge during his time at Oxford University in the 1960s and has a daughter named Chelsea.
Where was he on a mild Thursday night when Chelsea hosted Poland’s Legia Warsaw in the second leg of their Conference League quarter-final, though? Seemingly nowhere to be seen.
The same cannot be said for Madonna, however, who added some stardust to a game that was in desperate need of it.
Yes, Madonna, the American singer and songwriter often referred to as the ‘Queen of Pop’, was at Stamford Bridge — where there were thousands of empty seats due to the game being a diminished tie and not sold out — to watch Chelsea lose at home to Legia Warsaw.
Madonna’s attendance on Thursday night should not come as a significant surprise, though. After all, she also popped up earlier in the season when Chelsea beat Brighton & Hove Albion 4-2 on September 28.
For both fixtures, Madonna was with Akeem Morris, her partner. Morris previously played as a forward for the NY Renegades FC, a team competing in the U.S. in the United Premier Soccer League.
Madonna, 66, has dominated the music charts for decades with hits including ‘Like a Virgin’, ‘Into the Groove’, ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Like a Prayer’ and has a long affiliation with the Premier League side that dates back to her past marriage with Guy Ritchie, the English film director.
Ritchie, a known Chelsea fan, and Madonna were married between 2000 and 2008, which is when Chelsea were at their pomp under Jose Mourinho, winning consecutive league titles in 2004-05 and 2005-06, as well as the FA Cup in 2006-07.
A more prevalent link between the club and Madonna, however, exists in the boardroom at Stamford Bridge.
Barbara Charone, the UK-based American public relations veteran who co-founded MBC PR, has known Madonna for more than 40 years and is credited with helping the singer achieve international fame.
After Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly bought Chelsea in May 2022, Charone received an invitation to join the club’s board.
“A lot of people talked about putting fans on the board, but no one really did it, and they did it,” Charone told the BBC.
“I met Jonathan Goldstein, then I met Todd Boehly and the Clearlake guys, and obviously I never ever imagined that would happen — that I would be involved with Chelsea — so now I’m really excited.”
It is not known if Charone organised Madonna’s tickets for the directors’ box at Stamford Bridge, but the club knew about her planned attendance in advance of the match.
As attending what was billed as a dead rubber of a Europa League Conference tie proves, Madonna is no fair-weather football fan.
In 2017, Visao, a Portuguese weekly magazine, reported that she had moved to Lisbon after her adopted son, David Banda, then aged 11, joined Benfica’s academy. Several years later, Madonna uploaded a video of Banda scoring a goal during a football game.
While in London last week, Madonna also went to Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s — the British musician and actress known as Self Esteem — ‘A Complicated Woman’ theatrical production at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Self Esteem’s ‘A Complicated Woman’ has been lauded by critics, with The Times dubbing it “imaginative, excessive and charming”.
Although Madonna appeared to be enjoying herself, Chelsea’s performance could only be described as below-par, boring and lacklustre.
Stamford Bridge on Thursday night would have been a far cry from Self Esteem’s theatrical production, but Madonna smiling her way through a dull 90 minutes has given a new meaning to her song ‘True Blue’.
(Top photo: Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images)
