Madonna has swapped her trademark blonde hair for a fresh brunette look, but there’s a bittersweet story behind the makeover. In a new series of photos on her Instagram Stories, the singer reveals she’s gone back to her brunette roots, but it’s not for a role, video or an image switch-up. Instead, the singer shares that her hair transformation is a tender tribute to her much-loved mother, who died when she was just a young child.
She captions the first image: ‘I missed my Mother so I channelled her’. All three photographs are close-up portraits, showing Madonna with dark, wavy hair that falls to her cheekbones. A smattering of grey hair adds a poignant note. In two images, the singer can be seen holding one hand to her eye, as if wiping away a tear.
Madonna’s mother, Madonna Louise Ciccone, died of breast cancer aged just 30 in 1963, when her daughter was only five years old. The Queen of Pop has previously spoken of her devastation and ‘emptiness’ in a Sky documentary, Becoming Madonna, revealing: ‘It was like a part of my heart was ripped out. I was forced to grow up fast… It was too much for a child, I think.’
Madonna’s new brunette hair is almost certainly the work of a wig, but it’s actually very close to her original natural shade. Early photos of the singer, dating from her school days and her first dabblings in showbiz, show that she inherited her mother’s dark hair as well as her first name. While the singer is most famous for being a blonde, her natural dark brown hair is a colour she has returned to repeatedly over her career
As her career took off, her hair became lighter and lighter, leading to such iconic beauty images as her Marilyn Monroe-inspired platinum shade in the mid-80s, and the fierce ponytails of her Blond Ambition world tour of 1990. In fact, the hair shade has become as synonymous with Madonna as a gold Gaultier corset.
However, Madonna has frequently dabbled with the dark side over the years, to exquisite effect. Some of her best-ever brunette looks have included the daring Like A Prayer video and her darkly gothic look in Frozen.
While we don’t expect that the brunette hair will be a permanent change, it’s one we’ve loved seeing, for more than one reason. It’s touching, stylish and completely unexpected – nobody does it quite like Madonna.
