Madonna’s Homeless Brother Fears for His Life

While pop superstar Madonna is worth millions, one member of her family is struggling just to survive. Madge's older brother Anthony Ciccone, 55, is currently living under a bridge in Michigan and is desperately trying to prepare himself for the coming winter months.

Although Mr. Ciccone shares DNA with one of the most famous and revered pop stars of the last three decades, he hasn't received any assistance from his family after he lost his job at his father's winery over a year ago. It's not 100% clear as to why his large family, especially Madonna, isn't helping out the homeless 55-year-old, but Mr. Ciccone said it annoys him when he is stigmatized for sleeping on the streets considering one of his sisters is an international pop icon.

"My family turned their back on me, basically, when I was having a hard time,” he said to the Michigan Messenger. "You think I haven’t answered this kind of question a bazillion times — why my sister is a multibazillionarie, and I’m homeless on the street? ... Never say never. This could happen to anybody. I don’t have any income, I’ve got to go collect bottles and cans, do odd jobs."

Now, with winter steadily approaching, Mr. Ciccone is becoming increasingly concerned with surviving the harsh Michigan frost. "If you spend enough time on frozen concrete without proper insulation you will get frostbite," he said. "You have no idea how gruesome it is. You get nerve damage. That’s the milder stage, in the severe stage you have tissue damage, that is when you lose parts of your body.  I got frostbite on my feet last winter. A friend of mine lost all ten toes. Several have died of hypothermia."

Countless people are in the same boat as Ciccone, and it's incredibly unsettling to think about people freezing to death when most Americans take things like shelter and heat for granted. So what does Ciccone and other homeless people within his community do to fight the freeze? "You go and find a place to stay warm like the lobby at the jail, or you take a walk to get your feet warm and go to Meijer’s and sit in the lobby there," Ciccone said.

We're not sure why Madonna and the rest of the Ciccone clan doesn't speak to or help Anthony, and we would never want to intrude on a family's personal problems -- however, the thought of a family member losing limbs due to hypothermia and/or freezing to death, when it seems preventable, is heartbreaking.