There are few people more iconic than the queen that is , but even legends had a life before fame.
We’re all familiar with the Like A Prayer legend now, aged 65, with her signature blonde hair and . But beneath that, there was once a much softer brunette.
Before she was a global icon, Madonna Louise Ciccone was a university student just trying to scrape by and make a name for herself.
It wasn’t until 1983 that the star, having dropped out of the University of Michigan, would become the we know today.
From a to snaps, a rare archive showcasing the Queen of Pop as a young adult in the 70s has been shared on X.
A far cry from cone bras and sell-out world tours, the pictures are a reminder that even if she’s a material girl now she was once just a girl.
The pictures document Madonna in her late teens and early 20s, both at university and after she moved to to pursue her career.
She moves from wearing floaty dresses and participating in her dance classes to the edgier denim look of the 80s grunge scene.
One picture, shared by Dear Johnny, is captioned: ‘Madonna poses nude for an art school to make money in New York City, New York. 1977.’
Another depicts the star beaming in a floral dress as she is ‘photographed at the University of Michigan, where she had a scholarship to study dancing’.
A polaroid reportedly from 1982 was ‘taken at her New York apartment, showing her in a denim vest with her feet up.
The X account added: ‘According to her, all her neighbours were addicts and she would invite them in to make music. She had already become the queen of the underground scene by this point.’
Madonna, born August 16, 1958, grew up in a catholic family with two brothers, father Silvio Anthony Ciccone and her mother who shared her name.
On December 1, 1963, her mother died of breast cancer and after her father remarried, the young singer began to act out.
In her 2002 biography, it was revealed that while she had a high grade average in school, Madge was better known for her
She would flash her underwear in school, hang from monkey bars, cartwheel in hallways, and generally be the cheeky personality we know today.
The biography described her as a ‘lonely girl who was searching for something’, it added: ‘I wasn’t rebellious in a certain way.
‘I cared about being good at something. I didn’t shave my underarms or legs, and I didn’t wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades… I wanted to be somebody.’
And be somebody she would, climbing charts with her debut self-titled album after hounding local DJs in clubs to play her demos.
Holiday and Lucky Star came from a remixed version of this album, landing a then 25-year-old Madonna in the .
Every decade since the Queen of Pop has graced global charts with various hits and holds the record for most number ones by a female artist in the UK at 13 tracks.
Between 1984 and 1994, she gained a record of 36 consecutive top-ten entries in the UK charts.
In total, Madonna has had 50 number one hits in any chart, including songs like Vogue, Papa Don’t Preach, Like A Virgin, and Crazy For You.
She is the best-selling female artist of all time and sits behind Elton John, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and The Beatles for all time regardless of gender.
