Madonna’s new ultra-fancy gym, Hard Candy Fitness, opened in Mexico City yesterday with a huge amount of publicity. Â The material girl herself taught a class at the gym yesterday , and it looked like it was attended mostly by professional dancers and underwear models (no surprise there, then).
Apparently a membership at the luxury fitness center costs $160 per month. Â That kind of membership fee seems insultingly steep to me – is the average salary of a Mexico City resident high enough that $160 for a gym membership is actually reasonable, or is this Madonna’s way of excluding all but the most wealthy people? Â I didn’t think she was that hard-up for cash.
Madonna has been going out of her way to kill rumors that she’s romantically involved with 33-year-old choreographer Brahim Rachiki. Â Rachiki’s mother, however, tells a different story. Â In an interview for a UK newspaper, Patricia Vidal said that her son was definitely dating the Material Girl, and that she finds the entire situation a bit strange.
This woman never quits with the entrepreneurial spirit – Madonna, just weeks after announcing a new fashion line, has now put out a press release stating that she will open a chain of fitness centers called Hard Candy, after her album of the same name. Â But these won’t just be your run-of-the-mill gyms; they’ll combine exercise, fashion, and entertainment in quantities to be revealed at a later date.
Rapper Lil Wayne is finally set to be released from jail on the 4th of November, and he’s already starting to organize plans for the following weekend. Â On Tuesday, MTV broadcast a phone call that they had with Wayne, in which they talked to him about a concert that’s being planned in his honor. Â Wayne was asked which music act he’d like to see performing at that concert, and without missing a beat he replied, “Madonna,” and then laughed and said he was joking. Â Wayne added that it’s the strength and dedication of his fans that has kept him going through his ordeal, and that he’s been enjoying reading his fan mail and looking forward to seeing his friends.
Yesterday a stalker was picked up by police outside Madonna’s home in Manhattan.  The man, a retired firefighter named Robert Linhart, had a seven-inch ice pick on his person when he was arrested for harassment.  Linhart’s attorney says that adoring Madonna is not a crime, and that there is no evidence to show that Linhart was planning on using the ice pick unlawfully.  Yes, because there are so many legitimate reasons one might need an ice pick when walking down the street.  You never know when you might come across one of those famous Upper West Side sidewalk-icebergs… in September.  In any case, Madonna attended last night’s opening for her daughter’s new Material Girl clothing line, and told reporters that she was not frightened of the stalker or worried about her safety.
