At first glance, it looked like she might be inappropriately embracing one of her adopted sprogs. Perhaps he’d been sucking on a boiled sweet, it went down the wrong way and she was trying to save his life.
She cannot be dating him, surely! Madonna is 53. He is a mere embryo, a few cells cobbled together, barely formed at all.
Twenty-four-year-old French dancer Brahim Zaibat is touching her bottom which has finally, despite the yoga, developed middle-aged spread.
Madonna was spotted in an embrace with her new man Brahim Zaibat on a secluded beach spot in the Hamptons
He has sunglasses on top of his head, for goodness’ sake! You cannot date a man who does this, or who wears a baseball cap, or who needs burping. But Madonna is doing just that and, believe me, it will all end in tears.
When I first started dating my former husband, he was 26 years old and I was ... well, I can’t remember how old I was, so tangled was the web of deceit I was weaving, hiding my passport and placing gagging orders on my friends.
I do know that he was born in January 1974 while I was born in September 1958, making me one month younger than Madonna.
When we first started dating, I remember I was in a cafe in Paris, telling my then boss all about my new toy boy. She looked grave. ‘Any age difference greater than a decade will never work,’ she said.
I didn’t take any notice. I was well-preserved. Like Madonna, I practised Pilates. I enjoyed hip hop, toe rings and cropped Prada T-shirts exposing my midriff. I wasn’t mumsy in any way. But, oh dear me, how I wished I had heeded my boss’s advice.
Rather than bolster your ego they make you feel old beyond your years
There is a reason successful, attractive, powerful women choose men who have no recollection of gonks, Magpie, Follyfoot or even Live Aid. We spent our 20s and 30s focused on our career and suddenly looked up, aged 40, and realised the only things in the world that love us are our cats.
But we also choose from a different generation because, not having found a soul mate our own age, we are still hankering after the sort of boys we’d have loved to have dated as a teenager. We don’t want an old man with nose hair, warts, varicose veins et al. We want David Cassidy.
But, in the end, a January/September relationship doesn’t work.
You have to look at the reasons why young men date older women. It is not because we are more experienced in bed, funnier, more confident, or well read. It’s because they get an easy ride.
They love the fact we have a house, a car and furniture, and Madonna has the biggest house and the biggest car imaginable, making her catnip for lazy male youths who have never learned to change a duvet cover.
AFTER THIS LOT, SHE SHOULD HAVE LEARNED HER LESSON
VANILLA ICE: Age gap ten years. She was 34, the rapper 24, in 1992 when they had an eight-month fling after he appeared in her SEX coffee table book.
Ice described Madge as a domineering partner, saying: ‘She would call me at odd hours and ask “Are you in bed with another girl?” ’ In fairness, he probably was.
CARLOS LEON: Age gap eight years. She was 36, he was 28 and her personal trainer when they met in 1994. During their three years together they had daughter Lourdes.
Madonna’s affectionate nickname for him was ‘baby chicken’; his nickname for her isn’t known, but ‘meal ticket’ isn’t very romantic, is it?
TUPAC SHAKUR: Age gap 13 years. She was 37 and he was 24 when, during a break from Leon, Madonna had a fling with this U.S. rap star in 1995. He claimed she asked him to father a child and later dumped her.
He was killed in a shooting shortly afterwards. The killer was never caught, but Madge had an alibi.
GUY RITCHIE: Age gap ten years. She was 41, he was 31, when Trudie Styler introduced the director to his future wife in 1999. She later said he made her feel ‘wobbly bonkers’.
They had a son Rocco before splitting after eight years when Guy realised a woman who exercises for five hours a day and eats only seeds is just plain ‘bonkers’.
JESUS LUZ: Age gap 29 years. She was 51 and he was 22 when Madonna was introduced to the Brazilian model at a photo shoot in January 2009. He was naked at the time and something about him caught her eye. They split after ten months saying they had ‘nothing in common’. You don’t say.
Men our own age have withered on the vine: unlike us, they have no energy or sense of humour.
Women their own age make demands: they want babies, they want the man to pay for dinner. With us, very soon these toy boys become complacent, secure in the knowledge that because we are old, we are desperate to keep them.
It becomes very hard, if you are focused and a perfectionist like me and Madonna, not to mummy them. I was always saying to my husband: ‘Have you brushed your furry tongue?’
The ageist jabs begin as jests: ‘Don’t trip and break your hip.’ ‘Come on, old lady.’
Then these jabs transmogrify into barbs disguised as compliments: ‘You’re in really good nick for your age.’ My husband was always surprised some of my childhood photos were in colour.
In the end, their extreme youth gets on your nerves: the endless house music, the addiction to Xbox games, the childish conversations with and the texting of their stupid friends. My ex was always doing that Ali G thing, snapping his fingers; he told me I wasn’t allowed to do it because of my arthritis.
They are vain, too, always peering at their spotty visages in the magnifying mirror. In the end, the ageist jabs are real, and sharp, and deathly. ‘You f***ing dried-up old haaaaggggg!’ my husband once screamed at me, in the midst of our divorce. Just as the truth will out, so will age and resentment.
Apart from her brief, combative marriage to Sean Penn, who despite being her own age was really a great big egomaniacal baby, and a brief fling with Warren Beatty, Madonna has always targeted men years younger than her and they never stick around for long.
The two fathers of her children, Carlos Leon and Guy Ritchie, soon resented the fact she started sporting granny hairs from her chin and packed their bags. Her current beau’s mother is eight years younger than Madonna. That can’t be an aphrodisiac, surely.
My mother-in-law was only five years my senior. When we began reminiscing about Slinkies, Michael Aspel and The Singing Ringing Tree, I could see my child/man hybrid pale at the mistake he had made.
Dump this foetus, Madonna. Abort! Abort!
