Madonna’s brother Christopher Ciccone has died at the age of 63.
TMZ first reported that the author and designer died a couple of days ago, per his representatives.
The outlet revealed: ‘Madonna’s brother died Friday in Michigan due to cancer.
This shocking news comes weeks after the singer’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, died on September 24 after a brief battle with ‘very aggressive’ cancer.
Ciccone worked with his sister early in her career, working famously as a backup dancer at a time when he worked as a professional dancer.
He then went on to become the art director for Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, and later was the tour director for Madonna’s The Girlie Show, in 1993.
In 2008, Ciccone released an autobiography titled Life With My Sister Madonna.
The book became a New York Times bestseller but allegedly caused fractures between the pair.
In the book, Ciccone claimed his sister was a ‘middle-class girl who propagates the story that she landed in Times Square with just a pair of ballet shoes and $35 to her name.;
Adding her narrative was: ‘pure mythology and the further she progresses, the more mythological her life story becomes.’
In 2016, he married British hairdresser Ray Thacker.
In 2017 Ciccone told The Sun: ‘I could have written that book, the book about how horrifying she is or can be, but I didn’t write that book.
‘I was just looking for a little recognition for the work I’ve done for 20 years with her, that it wasn’t one person.’
It appears that the two ended rifts in 2012 and Ciccone told the Evening Standard at the time: ‘We are] on a perfectly personable level right now. As far as I’m concerned, we’re good.
‘We are in contact with each other, although I haven’t seen her for a long time.
‘We’re back to being a brother and sister. I don’t work for her, and it’s better this way.’
In the same interview, the designer praised his sister: ‘I couldn’t be more proud of her.
‘She is a force to be reckoned with. Does she have Barbra Streisand’s voice? No. Can she dance like Martha Graham? Probably not. But the combination of her abilities has made her great, and left a huge legacy for her, and through her, for me. So yeah, God bless her.’