Just focusing on her material
Madonna’s marital breakup is tough, but she says she’s grateful that her heavy workload “provides a distraction that keeps me going.”
“I’m sad about my personal life, but I feel very blessed and very lucky that I have the opportunity to do what I do in my professional life,” she says.
“It would be horrible if I was just thinking about getting a divorce and had nothing to do.”
On Friday, the singer and her film director husband, Guy Ritchie, were granted a preliminary decree of divorce after eight years of marriage.
They have two children, Rocco, 8, and David Banda, 3, who was adopted from Malawi in 2006.
Madonna has a 12-year-old daughter, Lourdes, from a previous relationship with personal trainer Carlos Leon.
Among her current projects is promoting her documentary “I Am Because We Are,” which explores the impoverished African nation of Malawi, where more than 1 million children are orphaned by AIDS.
The film has its TV premiere next Monday on the Sundance Channel.
Macca’s back in the game
Paul McCartney, eight months after his messy divorce from Heather Mills, is dating American businesswoman Nancy Shevell.
“I just like being in love,” says McCartney, whose experimental new album, “Electric Arguments,” comes out today.
For her part, Shevell says, “I’m a cancer survivor, I run a trucking company, and I’ve got a 16-year-old to raise” – which, she says, creates more stress than dealing with a pop star’s global renown.
Civil uncommitment
It’s all over between British singer Amy Winehouse and hubby Blake Fielder-Civil after 17 months of wedded weirdness.
“It was never going to last. We were only together for sex,” Winehouse says. “I fancied him like mad. … But it’s not enough, is it?”
A British court on Monday rejected Fielder-Civil’s appeal of his 27-month sentence for assault and obstructing justice.
Did he really want to?
Elsewhere on the celebrity legal docket, a Norwegian escort told a London court Monday that Boy George manacled him to a bedroom wall and beat him with a metal chain after accusing him of hacking into his computer.
The 47-year-old former Culture Club singer (real name George O’Dowd), on trial for false imprisonment, denies the accusation.
Audun Carlsen, 29, says he met O’Dowd through a Web site and went to his home for a naked photo shoot.
Now, THAT’s desperate
“Desperate Housewives” star Nicollette Sheridan reportedly “cuddled and kissed” with nerdy David Spade all night Friday at her 45th birthday party at a Beverly Hills eatery.
“They were full-on making out in a booth,” says People magazine.
The birthday bunch
Actor Ricardo Montalban is 88. Actress Kathryn Crosby is 75. Singer Percy Sledge is 68. Actor-game show host Ben Stein is 64. Actor John Larroquette is 61. Singer Amy Grant is 48. Actress Jill Hennessy (“Crossing Jordan”) is 39. Actress Christina Applegate is 37.