Material Girl

Madonna Wants the Star Treatment in Court Next Week

The defendant, Darlene Lutz, does not agree.
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by Jackson Lee/FilmMagic.

Madonna is going to court next Tuesday. Last month, the pop star sued her former friend Darlene Lutz and the Manhattan auction house Gotta Have It! Collectibles to stop the sale of 22 of her personal items, including her underwear, a hairbrush still containing her hair, cassette tapes of unreleased recordings, and personal letters from the late rapper Tupac Shakur.

But before the Material Girl makes her way to the courthouse Tuesday for her scheduled deposition, her lawyer, Jennifer Jones, has asked that her deposition not be videotaped—to the objection of Lutz, per Page Six. Lutz’s attorney, Judd Grossman, has shot back that Madonna should not receive the diva treatment when she enters court.

In an August 10 letter, Jones wrote that she wanted to protect her client based on her celebrity status and visibility.

“Given the intense media interest in this case, we are concerned that a protective order would be inadequate to protect the privacy interests of the individual parties,” she wrote.

Judd countered with the following in an e-mail statement to Vanity Fair (V.F. also reached out to Madonna’s legal representation):

“Madonna filed this very public lawsuit containing numerous accusations against Defendants without seeking any confidentiality,” Grossman said in an e-mail to Vanity Fair. “Now that it is Defendants’ turn to test those allegations under cross-examination, for the first time Madonna wants these proceedings to be conducted in secret. Her celebrity status is no reason to treat her differently than any other party who walks through the courthouse doors.”

There will be a hearing concerning this matter on Monday.

Since last month, Lutz—who, per Time Madonna identified as “a former friend, art consultant, and frequent overnight guest”—has remained adamant that Madonna gave her the items put up at auction willingly. Lutz’s legal team maintains that these items are now their client’s “legal property.”

“As a result of my close relationship with Plaintiff, I received certain ephemera directly from her,” Lutz said in the court documents, per the New York Daily News last month. “I also had a close friendship with several of Plaintiffs family members, during that time, and I received various items directly from them.”