EMILY PRESCOTT: A front-row seat – but then Sadiq Khan leaves in first half of Madonna gig
Madonna’s tour is by far the hottest ticket in town, with VIP seats costing more than £1,300 – if you can get your hands on them.
Yet London Mayor Sadiq Khan somehow managed to secure a coveted front row position for the Queen of Pop’s critically acclaimed show at the O2 last week, despite apparently showing little interest had in music.
The 53-year-old left the performance well before half way through and missed many of the superstar’s biggest hits.
Taking a seat that could have gone to a true Madonna fan, the Labor politician sat with his lawyer wife Saadiya at the end of the catwalk, next to pop star Rita Ora and her husband Taika Waititi, the New Zealand born film director.
Madonna’s tour is by far the hottest ticket in town, with VIP seats priced at over £1,300
Sadiq Khan somehow managed to secure a coveted front row position for the Queen of Pop’s critically acclaimed show at the O2
He stuck around for opening numbers Nothing Real Matters and Open Your Heart – but missed numbers like Vogue, Like A Virgin and Crazy For You. But his office insisted the mayor was “excited to see Madonna back in the capital.”
While Khan ducked out early, Ms Ora couldn’t have had more fun – even dressing up in a white shirt and black tie in tribute to one of the singer’s signature looks. The 32-year-old said of the evening on Instagram: “I went to MUVA and I’m sweating in places I didn’t know were possible.”
For the uninitiated, ‘Muva’ is slang for mother and is used to indicate respect.
Also spotted at last week’s sold-out gigs were Emma Watson, Graham Norton and Boy George. Perhaps Bruce Springsteen is more to the mayor’s taste, as he was spotted in a fan T-shirt during his performance in Hyde Park in July.
An interesting one position for Gillian Anderson, who finds today’s wellness culture “toxic” – despite the fact that she has her own, er… wellness brand.
Gillian Anderson
The X Files star, left, told Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail podcast that she believes our obsession with exercise and dieting is “potentially making people even sicker.”
But it’s clear that a certain wellness culture is palatable to the 55-year-old actress, who has launched her own brand of drinks to seemingly “break the all-or-nothing-ness of the wellness industry.” The drink, called G-Spot, a nod to her role as a sex therapist in the Netflix drama Sex Education, is said to be ‘filled to the brim with adaptogens and nootropics’ – so-called smart drugs.