Madonna announces The Celebration global world tour to mark 40th anniversary
Madonna has announced a major world tour marking her 40th anniversary, including a show at London’s O2 Arena.
The announcement comes after weeks of speculation the Queen of Pop had been planning something big to celebrate her career since the release of her self-titled debut album, which launched her on the path to stardom with hits including Holiday, Lucky Star and Borderline.
Writing on Instagram – after previously clearing her page to make way for the news – Madonna simply said: “Come join the party!” In a statement sent to Sky News, she said: “I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for.”
Madonna has announced the Celebration tour, marking 40 years of her greatest hits. Pic: Ricardo Gomes
The Celebration tour will feature the 64-year-old artist’s four decades of greatest hits, starting in Vancouver, Canada, on 15 July. The star will play gigs across Canada and the US between July and October, before starting the European leg at the O2 on 14 October.
She will follow this with shows in cities including Barcelona, Paris and Berlin, before finishing in Amsterdam on 1 December – taking in 35 cities in total.
Tickets will likely sell out quickly, so it is possible there could be an announcement of further shows to come.
As the tour was revealed on big screens in London, Madonna also released a video featuring stars including Diplo, Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne and Bob The Drag Queen, culminating with Amy Schumer daring the star to go on tour and perform her four decades of mega hits.
Madonna is one of the biggest-selling artists of all time and the best-selling female artist in the world, holding numerous records in the US and UK – with 13 number one singles in the UK she has more than any other female artist, as well as 12 number one albums.
In 2022, she became the first woman to chart in the US Billboard top 10 in every decade since the 1980s.
Her last tour was the smaller Madame X tour in 2019 and 2020, which saw the star performing at more intimate theatre venues. However, the shows were delayed due to the singer suffering knee and hip problems, and some were cancelled due to the pandemic. This time round, she will be on stage at major arenas, including Madison Square Garden in New York.
Over the years she has been known for continuously reinventing her music and her image, with hits including Like A Virgin, Into The Groove, Papa Don’t Preach and Like A Prayer in the 1980s; Vogue, Justify My Love, Erotica and Frozen in the 1990s; and Music, Hung Up, Sorry and collaborations with Britney Spears (Me Against The Music) and Justin Timberlake (4 Minutes) in the 2000s.
Her first greatest hits album, The Immaculate Collection, released in 1990, is one of the best-selling albums of all time, with reported sales of around 30 million. Overall, she is reported to have sold up to 300 million records worldwide.
A multi-Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello winning performer, she was also inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008, her first year of eligibility, for which she was described in her introduction as “the record-setting, line-crossing, sexuality-flaunting, ever-evolving Material Girl”.
It continued: “Madonna is an icon. With her larger than life persona and penchant for provocation, she needs no introduction.”
Madonna in her famous cone bra top designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, during the Blonde Ambition tour in Philadelphia. Pic: AP Photo/Sean Kardon
As well as her music, the star is almost as famous for pushing boundaries with fashion and her choices of explicit outfits over the decades.
In the early days of her career, she pioneered the “underwear as outerwear” trend by wearing a corset bodysuit with conical bra cups, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier.
And in 2016, she attended the Met Gala in a bondage-inspired Givenchy outfit featuring leather, lace, thigh-high boots, a thong and nipple pasties.
In 2021, she hit out at Instagram for taking down provocative photographs in which her nipple was exposed, saying: “It is still astounding to me that we live in a culture that allows every inch of a woman’s body to be shown except a nipple. As if that is the only part of a woman’s anatomy that could be sexualized. The nipple that nourishes the baby! Can’t a mans nipple be experienced as erotic ??!!”
In 2022, the singer revisited a number of tracks which made her an international star, including a new take on her 1998 classic Frozen, which she recorded with Canadian musician Sickick, and a remix of her dance hit Hung Up with Dominican rapper Tokischa.
It followed a reformed partnership with her previous long-time record label Warner Music Group, which produced her debut single in 1982.
Tickets for Madonna: The Celebration tour will go on sale on Friday.
A woman who was charged with selling Friends star Matthew Parry the dose of the drug that killed him has agreed to plead guilty.
Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen”, is the fifth and final defendant to strike a plea deal with prosecutors, avoiding a trial that was set to take place in September.
The 42-year-old agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
She agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the Ketamine that led to Perry’s death, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a dual US and UK national, as a prolific drug dealer known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen”, often using the term in court documents and even including it in the official name of the case.
Actor Matthew Perry in 2015. File pic: Reuters
She agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors said.
Dr. Mark Chavez, a physician from San Diego, who is charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s fatal overdose. Pic: AP
She is facing up to 45 years in prison.
Sangha and a doctor named Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal in June, had been the primary targets of the investigation.
Three other defendants – Mark Chavez, who it was claimed bought the drug from Sangha, Kenneth Iwamasa, and Erik Flemin – agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.
Friends became one of the most popular TV shows in the world in the 1990s and 2000s
Prosecutors allege Chavez funnelled ketamine to Plasencia, securing some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.
In one instance, prosecutors allege that Plasencia “charged Perry $2,000 (£1,500) a vial that cost Dr Chavez approximately $12 (£9)”.
Perry died in his home in October 2023, aged 54, after getting ketamine from his regular doctor for treatment of depression, which is an increasingly common use for the surgical anaesthetic.
The actor was taking ketamine six to eight times a day before he died, according to court documents.
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An Ozzy Osbourne documentary has disappeared from the BBC’s schedule without explanation.
The film was billed by producers as “a moving and inspirational account” of the last chapter of the metal legend’s life.
It was meant to air at 9pm on Monday on BBC One – as well as be available on iPlayer – but an episode of Fake Or Fortune? has replaced it.
Sky News has contacted the BBC for comment on why the programme, called Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home, has been pulled.
The project was filmed over three years as Ozzy and his family returned to the UK, and was initially conceived as a series entitled Home to Roost.
However, as the singer’s health got worse it morphed into a one-off.
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The BBC reported the show would reveal the “extraordinary rollercoaster” of the Osbournes’ lives as Ozzy tries “heroically” to get fit enough to perform again.
It’s said to feature “unique and intimate access” to the family, including Ozzy’s children, Jack and Kelly, who appeared in the reality series that made them household names in the early 2000s.
The Black Sabbath frontman, who had Parkinson’s disease, died last month – just a few weeks after his final all-star gig at Birmingham’s Villa Park.
Fans packed the city centre and chanted his name when his hearse passed through on 30 July.
His wife, Sharon, was in tears as she got out to see the mass of flowers left for him at “Sabbath Bridge”.
The New York Times said his death certificate gave the cause as cardiac arrest, but the family hasn’t commented.
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