Madonna is mourning the loss of her younger brother, Christopher Ciccone. Ciccone, an artist and interior designer, passed away “peacefully” on Friday, Oct. 4, with his husband, Ray Thacker, “faithfully by his side” following a battle with cancer, a representative confirmed to USA TODAY. He was 63.
Paying tribute to her late brother in an emotional Instagram post on Sunday, Madonna called Ciccone “the closest human to me for so long.” Reflecting on their close bond, the superstar said “it grew out of an understanding that we were different and society was going to give us a hard time for not following the status quo.” She also shared that the art of dance “was a kind of superglue that held us together,” and not only “saved” both herself and her brother, but also was he reason why they both moved to New York City early into her career. Ciccone served as a backup dancer for Madonna and worked as the creative director on many of her tours, including her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour, and choreographed the music video for her 1982 song “Everybody.”
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“My brother was right by my side,” she continued. “We soared the highest heights together. And floundered in the lowest lows. Somehow, we always found each other again and We held hands and we kept dancing.”
Although Madonna acknowledged that “the last few years have not been easy” and they “did not speak for sometime,” she said that her brother’s cancer diagnosis allowed them to find “our way back to each other. I did my best to keep him alive as long as possible. He was in so much pain towards the end once again, we held hands We closed our eyes and we danced. Together.”
She ended her post by writing, “There will never be anyone like him. I know he’s dancing somewhere.”
In addition to his “symbiotic collaboration” with his sister, which also included serving as an “interior designer within the homes his elder sibling owned and occupied in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles,” per a statement shared with ABC News, Ciccone worked as “an interior specialist; a designer of footwear; a memoirist – all the while dedicating himself to painting as his primary mode of personal expression.” In 2008, he also released his memoir, Life with My Sister Madonna.
Ciccone’s passing follows the September passing of his stepmother, Joan Gustafson Ciccone, who passed away of cancer at age 81. It also comes after his eldest brother Anthony Ciccone died of respiratory failure and throat cancer in February 2023 at the age of 66. He is survived by his father and sister, Madonna, as well as several other siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.
