Guy Ritchie Still Loves Madonna But Calls Her "Retarded"
Oct. 8 2009, Published 11:30 a.m. ET
British director Guy Ritchie has broken his silence about ex-wife Madonna claiming that he still loves her but that the superstar is 'emotionally retarded.'
In a candid interview, Ritchie has lifted the lid on his mixed emotions about the singer a year after they split.
Speaking in the November issue of US Esquire magazine, the Sherlock Holmes director praises Madonna's work ethic before saying: "And, of course, here you go: I still love her."
But he adds: "But she's retarded too" - probably alluding to the difficulties of being married to the famously demanding star.
The topic of Madonna came up when the magazine's journalist Tom Chiarella checked Ritchie's iPod and found no Madonna tunes on it.
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Asked about the superstar Ritchie said: She's a manifester, if ever there was one - first rate manifester - Madonna makes things happen."
But then he appears to take a swipe at her 23-year-old love interest Jesus Luz by adding: "Put Madonna up against any twenty-three-year-old, she'll outwork them, out-dance them, out-perform them. The woman is broad."
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Ritchie - who has been linked with a string of women - since they split in December opened up about the painful divorce.
The pair share custody of their sons Rocco, nine, and adopted David Banda, 4, - but the collapse of their eight-year marriage really affected him.
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He said: "You can't tell someone when they're getting divorced that their pain is an illusion.
"I'm f***ing telling you, I feel it, I've been through that. You have, too. No one can say you don't feel that.
That's the illusion of the illusion. The biggest fundamental is, you need a little ignorance."
Madonna and Ritchie married at Skibo Castle in Dornoch, Scotland, on December 22, 2000.
The-51-year-old singer also has a 12-year-old daughter, Lourdes, with fitness instructor Carlos Leon, and this summer adopted Mercy James, 3.
The divorce seems to have affected her badly after her appearance on David Letterman's show last week.
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Asked if she would ever get married again she replied: 'I think I would rather get run over by a train."
Ritchie admitted in his interview that when Madonna visited his Punchbowl Pub in London she was treated like any other customer.
He said: "No one bothered her - Hello darling. How Are You, darling? What can we get you?
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It was fundamental, old school. It didn't matter who she was. She was my wife."
The couple's divorce was finalized in January this year and Ritchie was upset when the singer's spokesperson claimed he received a pay-out of between between $80 and $90 million.
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The director later got Madonna to admit that this figure was 'misleading and inaccurate'.
