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Meredith Goldberg-Morse

Another tour stop, another controversy for Madonna, who can’t seem to catch a break on her wildly successful but endlessly dramatic "MDNA Tour."

Since the tour’s kickoff, Madonna has flashed Istanbul, mooned Rome, angered a French Front National party leader to the point of legal action and kind of snubbed the entirety of Australia. And just when we thought she’d run out of international populations to offend, the superstar singer is now on the receiving end of criticism from Polish citizens regarding the scheduling of her Warsaw tour stop.

The concert, scheduled for August 1, falls on the 68th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, the start of a 63-day rebellion that resulted in more than 200,000 deaths and left the city devastated. The commemoration is a somber one, marked by the wailing of a siren, a moment of silence and special prayers—pretty much the antithesis of the mood at a Madonna concert. Veterans and young Catholics have raised concerns about the performance distracting from the gravity of the day’s history.

Concert organizers have agreed to air a clip about the Uprising at the beginning of the Queen of Pop's show to honor veterans. As a Live Nation spokesman explained, "It is an important moment in Polish history, so we have decided to remind people of that moment."

This isn’t the first time Madonna’s incurred the ire of Polish citizens. Her use of Christian imagery often offends the largely Roman Catholic population, and her "Sticky & Sweet Tour" ignited protests back in 2009 when her concert coincided with the August 15 holiday celebrating the heavenly assumption of the Virgin Mary. Perhaps a bit more research is in order before she schedules her next visit to Warsaw.

Hopefully the clip, an idea proposed by city officials, will diffuse any tension between Madonna and the Poles before she moves on to her inevitable next controversy.

Tags Madonna, Tour Dates

Madonna kicked up controversy again this weekend as her wildly successful "MDNA Tour" hit Paris for a provocative show, where she again flashed her nipple and backside and held her ground against a conservative political leader, leading to reignited threats of a lawsuit.

Madonna played France's national stadium, the Stade de France, on Saturday in front of more than 70,000 fans and showed a talked-about video montage, set to her song "Nobody Knows Me," that features right-wing Front National party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika superimposed on her face before cutting away to an image of a man resembling Adolf Hitler. The clip also includes images of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Pope Benedict and Sarah Palin.

>> 'Turn Up The Radio' Needs to Be Madonna's Next MDNA Single

The video has been shown during each of Madonna's "MDNA Tour" shows. Le Pen said after the tour's kickoff in Tel Aviv, Israel, that she would pursue litigation if Madonna played the clip during either of her shows in France, and is now expected to take legal action.

"We can’t accept this. Marine Le Pen is defending her own honor, but also that of the Front National’s members, its supporters and its millions of voters," Front National party vice-president Florian Philippot told the French press (via The Hollywood Reporter).

Lawyers for the FN party say a case for public insult will be brought to the Paris courts as early as this week.

>> Madonna's 'Turn Up The Radio' Video: Superstar Gone Wild

At her Paris show, Madonna also continued another "MDNA Tour" trend by stripping down onstage. This time, Her Madgesty bared both her breast and backside, trumping her Istanbul nipple-flash and mooning her audience in Rome.

The very busy Queen of Pop also dropped the video for her latest single, "Turn Up The Radio," earlier today (July 16). The clip features Madonna cruising around Rome and the surrounding countryside in a convertible with several of her back-up dancers.

Tags Madonna, Tour Dates

Madonna has confirmed that her next MDNA single, "Turn Up the Radio," will be released August 5.

We've been saying all along that the simple, propulsive dance-pop anthem is one of our favorite MDNA tracks and may have better served the record, which debuted strong with 359,000 units moved (before Justin Bieber's Believe unseated it, MDNA had the year's top debut) before freefalling down the chart, as its lead single. It has "summer jam" written all over it.

As we reported earlier, Madonna was spotted shooting the video for "Radio" in Rome last month while in the city on her "MDNA Tour." On the set, M and her dancers were seen partying down to the synth-driven tune in a convertible.

The song will drop officially just a few days before Madonna hits St. Petersburg for a sure-to-be controversial concert in the Russian city. Earlier this year, lawmakers in the city passed a resolution that forbids the "promotion of homosexuality" by making discussion of the topic illegal in almost all instances and regardless of the context. Many called on Madonna to cancel her August 9 concert there; instead, she promised to tackle the subject head-on.

"I will come to St. Petersburg to speak up for the gay community and to give strength and inspiration to anyone who is or feels oppressed," Madonna said in an email statement to Bloomberg. "I'm a freedom fighter. … I don’t run away from adversity. I will speak during my show about this ridiculous atrocity."

Now, the St. Petersburg city councilman who proposed the so-called "gay gag rule," Vitaly Miranov, has issued a warning to the pop icon that city officials plan to keep a close eye on her … and hold her accountable for any violations to their conservative laws.

"I heard at the concerts on this tour she pulled off her tights, and we will not have that here. We warn the organizers of the concert so that everything goes well. Otherwise they will face the harsh laws of St. Petersburg," Milanov said, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency (via The Daily Beast).

He is, of course, referring to Madonna's concerts in Istanbul, Turkey, and Rome, Italy, where she flashed her nipple and backside, respectively, at the audience.

Madonna is famous for flaunting laws she finds ridiculous. Who can forget her decision – documented in "Truth or Dare" – to not censor her onstage behavior during a 1990 "Blonde Ambition" tour concert in Canada after authorities threatened her with arrest for lewd conduct? She is currently also facing threats of legal action from French National Front leader Marine Le Pen if she includes the images, shown during the "Nobody Knows Me" video montage, of the conservative politician with a swastika on her forehead during either of her "MDNA Tour" shows in France, which are set for the country's national stadium, the Stade de France, in Paris on July 14 and at Nice's Stade Charles-Ehrmann on August 21.

We're sure to hear more on this situation in the lead-up to the St. Petersburg concert. Stay tuned!

Tags Madonna, Tour Dates

By Bryant Gilmore

When you’ve shed as many skins as Madonna has over the years, you might start to worry about what you leave behind.

Reportedly, the Queen of Pop is so concerned with leaving behind her precious DNA in dressing rooms during stops on her MDNA world tour that a “sterilization team” has to come in after she’s left and carefully remove any traces that she may have left. Alvaro Ramos, her Portuguese tour promoter, acknowledges that the rumored sterilization situation is unique.

During a recent press conference, he reportedly said (via Vanity Fair):

We have to take extreme care, like I have never seen for any other artist. We cannot even look at the dressing room, after it is ready, or even open the door. We can only enter after her sterilization team has left the room. There will not be any of Madonna’s DNA, any hair, or anything. They will clean up everything. In the end it is all to protect her and make her feel comfortable. I do understand it, but it is taken to extremes.

They also reportedly construct fake ceilings and walls so she can be certain no one is filming her.

The “sterilization team” talk is the latest strange detail to emerge following a list of crazy rumored demands on her tour rider that includes a 200-person entourage complete with 30 bodyguards, yoga instructors, vegan chefs (even though Madonna is not vegan), 20 international phone lines in her dressing room and special furniture that has to be brought with her from hotel room to hotel room.

The "MDNA Tour" has courted controversy since it began. Madonna has flashed her bum and nipples to crowds in Rome and Turkey and placed a swastika on the forehead of French politician Marine Le Pen during her “Nobody Knows Me” video interlude, which resulted in threatened legal action.

The crazy tour demands and body part flashing have not deterred her hardcore fans from attending her show … the "MDNA Tour is on track to be one of the top ten highest grossing tours of all time.

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