Madonna struck by loss as step-mum Joan Ciccone who she had strained relationship with dies

It's been announced that Madonna's step-mother Joan Ciccone passed away, aged 81, a few days ago after having been diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of cancer.

Madonna, 66, was raised by her father Silvio 'Tony' Ciccone, 93, and her late step-mother for much of her childhood. Joan, who had briefly been a housekeeper for the family, married father-of-six Tony back in 1966, just three years on from the death of Madonna's mother, Madonna Fortin.

Tony was already a parent to six kids prior to his marriage to Joan more than five decades ago. The couple later welcomed three children together; the late Joey Ciccone, Jennifer Ciccone and youngest sibling Mario Ciccone.

An obituary for Joan uploaded this week states that she "passed away peacefully" on Tuesday morning following "a brief encounter with a very aggressive cancer". The obituary adds that Madonna's late step-mother had enriched the lives of those she knew with "her enthusiasm, joy and love".

Madonna has spoken about Joan and their family over the years, including having admitted that she "didn't want to accept" change in her life after her own mother's death. She also alleged that Joan had been known to "slap" her.

She spoke about her father remarrying when she was a child on the Howard Stern Show in 2015. She said: "We were really shocked by [the engagement] because we were still mourning and grieving my mother's death."

Madonna told Rolling Stone in 1984: "It was hard to accept her as an authority figure and also accept her as being the new number-one female in my father's life. [He] wanted us to call her Mom, not her first name. I remember it being really hard for me to get the word mother out of my mouth."

Asked if she was ever hit growing up during a Rolling Stone interview in 1991, Madonna told actor Carrie Fisher at the time: "My father never hit me. My stepmother slapped me a lot, and she gave me a bloody nose once."

And discussing her upbringing, the singer-songwriter had previously told TIME magazine in 1985: "I was the oldest girl so I had a lot of adult responsibilities. [...] I really saw myself as the quintessential Cinderella. You know, I have this stepmother and I have all this work to do and it's awful and I never go out and I don't have pretty dresses."

The Grammy Award winner once suggested that the situation was "really hard" for Joan. She told Larry King in a CNN interview in 2002: "Truthfully, I didn't accept my stepmother when I was growing up. In retrospect, I think that was really hard on her. [...] I'm very close to my father and I didn't want to accept change in my life."

Further commenting on her routine growing up, she told Howard Stern whilst a guest on on his radio host almost a decade ago: "There wasn't a lot of free time in my life. It was school, come home, housework, help with dinner, do your schoolwork, clean the house, take care of the little kids."

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