Madonna, a former lover of Jean-Michel Basquiat tells her story
I am not sure if I met Jean-Michel in an art gallery or a night-club, but in those days you couldn’t tell the difference.
He had the presence of a movie star and I was crazy about him. He carried crumpled wads of money in the pockets of his paint-splattered Armani suits. Money he felt guilty about having. Money he always gave away to less fortunate friends.
I remember Jean-Michel’s tag—Samo—which was accompanied with a little crown and I remember thinking he was a genius. He was. But he wasn’t very comfortable with it.
I remember all the girls were in love with him and one night I looked out of his loft window and saw a girl whose heart he had broken, burning his paintings in a big bonfire. I wanted to stop her and rescue his paintings, but he didn’t seem to mind. He said it was their fate.
I remember him getting up at 3am and sleepwalking to an empty canvas. He stood inches away from it and proceeded to paint the most minuscule figures and what he did was so beautiful and intellectual and I stood watching him with dumbfounded amazement.
He was one of the few people I was truly envious of. But he didn’t know how good he was and was plagued with insecurities. He used to say he was jealous of me because music is more accessible and it reached more people. He loathed the idea that art was appreciated by an elite group.
When I broke up with him he demanded I give back the paintings he had given me. Not because he didn’t think I deserved them, but because he was obsessed with the idea that I would sell them.
He was so paranoid. Of course, I was heartbroken but complied. Now I couldn’t buy one of his paintings if I wanted to.
When I heard that Jean-Michel had died I was not surprised. He was too fragile for this world.
I remember one summer having dinner with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel at Mr Chow’s and feeling like the luckiest girl in the world to have known him. To have known all of them. Now they’re all gone.
(Source: New Straits Times - June 2, 1996)
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