Goddess is the book that Madonna and her entourage did not want published. Long before the star could instruct her family and friends not to talk to the author, Barbara Victor spent more than eighteen months in Michigan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, California, New York, and Florida, interviewing Madonna's father and stepmother, her grandmother and other family members, as well as friends, neighbors, business associates, and former lovers and colleagues, some of whom knew the Ciccone family from the time Madonna was a young child, many of whom have never before spoken either on or off the record. In this extraordinary biography, Barbara Victor taps into previously unexplored sources to unmask the privet person behind the public image. As a result of her extensive research, Victor casts new light on every aspect of Madonna's career and private life -- from her childhood in Michigan to her early years in New York, from meteoric ascent to stardom to her most recent incarnation as an English wife and mother. After almost two decades, since she first appeared in the international music scene, Madonna continues to fascinate and challenge both her fans and her detractors. With her remarkable ability to reinvent herself -- from diva to provocateur, from artist to mogul -- she continues to command more attention and arouse more controversy than any other public figure of our time. Alternately criticized and revered, Madonna consistently and dramatically sets style, social, sexual, and musical trends and yet she remains an enigma to her public, keeping her most intimate identity hidden from all but her closest friends. Goddess offers explosive new revelations about Madonna's life, her career, and the fact or fantasy of her lesbian and heterosexual relationships. Barbara Victor has written the definitive biography about a woman who gives new meaning to the term superstar.