Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie are ending their almost-eight-year marriage, a rep for the singer confirmed Wednesday.

“The main concern for Madonna and Guy are their children – the security of their children in all senses of the word and the wellbeing of their children,” rep Liz Rosenberg decared to the press. “That’s the priority for both of them moving forward. It’s a sad situation.”

The former couple, who have Rocco, 8, and David, 3, together and Madonna’s 12-year-old daughter Lourdes with ex Carlos Leon, announced their divorce in a statement.

“Madonna and Guy Ritchie have agreed to divorce after seven-and-a-half years of marriage. They have both requested that the media maintain respect for their family at this difficult time,” says the statement.

The statement says they have not agreed to a settlement.

“The judgment of the court would be to try and assess what they came in with and divide what they built up fairly equally,” said David Allison, a lawyer with Family Law in Partnership, a London firm, told the Associated Press.

Madonna, is going to continue her Sticky and Sweet tour and is set to play Boston Wednesday night and her ex husband, Ritchie is in UK to direct his latest film, Sherlock Holmes.

Madonna fans – get ready to party! As her countdown to her Sticky & Sweet tour begins, the Queen of Pop is preparing to take fans on a “rock-driven, dancetastic journey,”

The singer kicked off her Sticky and Sweet Tour Saturday night in a glamorous way. She was sitting on a diamante “M” throne in a fringed black leotard and over-the-knee leather boots while she was singing the first track: Candy Shop,

The first tour city was Cardiff and Madonna had a very strong audience of 40,000 people who got to see on screen other artists also – Kanye West, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

The 50-year-old singer pulled out all the stops, even using a video interlude to send a political message with images of peace campaigners, Al Gore, Bono and Barack Obama mixed with scenes of war-torn continents and poverty.

Religious messages flashed on the screens behind her for a remixed house version of “Like a Prayer,” which was met with mass cheers.

After two hours, Madonna left the stage as the screen flashed “Game Over.”

The next pittstop will be in France, and in October in New Jersey.

He  entered the Upper West Side building where he and Madonna own an apartment around 6:30 pm, accompanied by 2 bodyguards.

It was reported that the two stars spent the weekend apart – she with their three children in New York, and him in London. And to add up to the fire,  none wore their wedding bands.

Madonna’s spokesperson, Liz Rosenberg, said, “Madonna has rarely worn a wedding band over these last six years, so there’s no secret message about that.”

What is certain is that last week the singer had an encounter with divorce attorney Fiona Shackleton, who represented Paul McCartney and Prince Charles in their respective divorces.

There is also a surprise addition of Clint Eastwood’s “The Changeling” that will repeat lat year’s appearance of Jolie and Brad Pitt. Jolie stars in the film along with Amy Ryan and John Malkovich. Jolie will also sit in at a May 15 press conference for the animated Kung Fu Panda, alongside Jackie Chan, Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman.

Indiana Jones will have the premiere on May 18 and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will draw Blanchett, Karen Allen and Harrison Ford. Afterwards, the trio – along with co star Shia LaBeouf and Ford’s longtime girlfriend Calista Flockhart – are set to attend an exclusive party onboard the world’s most luxurious yacht, the RM Elegant.

Johansson, Penelope Cruz and her heartthrob, Javiar Bardem, will promote the debut of Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, while Natalie Portman will be on hand in an official capacity as a member of the festival jury.

The most anticipated gala event is the Madonna/Sharon Stone match-up on May 23. The singer, who has produced a documentary on Malawi that is set to screen at the fest, will join Stone as co-host of AMfar’s annual AIDS research benefit dinner and celebrity auction.

Madonna is very close to being the legal mother of David Banda.

She is helped by the Malawian government which is urging its High Court to give the permission. A confidential document, dated March 25, and signed by Probation Officer S. Chisale at the Ministry of Women and Child Development, says that Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie are providing a good home for Banda.

“In the best interest of the child, I do recommend the petitioners to your lordship for your consideration that they be granted an adoption order having proved that they are suitable parents and satisfied the conditions in the interim adoption order,” says Chisale.

The 2-year-old boy left Africa in 2006 to live with Madonna and her family in their London home. However the formalities of adopting were not as simple as thought of. THere were some critics about the Malawi breaking its own laws, allowing Madonna, a non residential to adopt a child.

We all got used to Madonna’s straight way of telling things. In the most recent issue of Elle UK talks about her kids, her sex life and her tempestuous marriage to Guy Ritchie.

The two celebrities have had a lot of rumours around their love life in the last months. Therefore the singer’s rep even released a statement saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Guy Ritchie remain happily married.”

In the interview, she talks about the problems encountered in their couple: “I had to marry a challenge because otherwise I would just get bored,” she says. “Whatever else Guy is, he’s never boring … We’re both there to help each other and challenge each other.”

Madonna tells Elle that Ritchie inspired her new song “Miles Away,” in which she complaints about the time spent apart. “So many people have to deal with long-distance relationships,” she says. “It’s not easy. You have to work hard to make it work.”

And in the bittersweet love song, “Incredible,” one lyric says: “sex with you is incredible.” Should we consider this also a tribute to her beloved husband? “Absolutely,” she tells the magazine. “Sex with Guy is incredible … And surprise, surprise, it’s his favorite song on the album. Actually, maybe it’s not his favorite song, but it’s definitely his favorite line.”

Moreover, she seems astonished by the importance media is giving to her marriage , which she considers kind of dull. She even suggests that the Beckhams are worth to be watched.

It seems taht Madonna has some issues with singing some of her well known hits. This is what she declares in an interview last Friday:I’m not sure I can sing ‘Holiday’ or ‘Like A Virgin’ ever again. I just can’t – unless somebody paid me like $30 million or something. [Like if] some Russian guy wants me to come to the wedding he’s going to have to a 17-year-old, you know it.”

Inthe meanwhile, she is ready to release her latest album, Hard Candy, on April 29. Madonna says also about the music business that people stop focusing so much on playing live.

• On Britney Spears’s New Record: “I actually love Britney Spears’s new album … I usually work out to her record. I do a combination of pilates and dance aerobics.”

• On Her Chances If She Were On American Idol: “I went to a lot of auditions for musical theater and conventional mainstream things – and I always got cut immediately. So I’m pretty sure the same thing would happen to me.”

And about the first picture…she was going to a costume party. So it’s a good excuse for going out like that.

In a new interview, Madonna, 49, says collaborating with the “SexyBack” singer, 27, was sometimes so intense it felt like being in therapy. “We kind of had psychoanalytic sessions whenever we wrote songs. We’d sit down and start talking about situations. And then we’d start talking about issues or problems or relationships with people,” Madonna tells Interview magazine. “That was the only way, because you know, writing together with somebody is very intimate.”

The two musicians, who worked on Madonna’s new single “4 Minutes to Save the World,” immediately clicked, she adds. “He’s open and he’s got talent. He’s a songwriter. I haven’t worked with a lot of songwriters where I’m instantly connected and start riffing and playing with the rhythm of the words. He’s as interested in rhythm of words as the meaning of words. I enjoyed that process with him.”

Death, taxes, and jury duty are just about the only guarantees in life–even if your pop royalty like Madonna.

The morning after the Oscars, Madonna had to be up early for Jury duty in Beverly Hills. Madge showed up on time, went through security, hung out for a few hours chatting on her blackberry and was finally released after lunch. Time is money! Imagine how it would be to go all upset that you had to wake up to serve for jury duty and you actually wake up with Madonna sitting next to you. Maybe the state should make a campaign like come to serve the jury duty because you never know what celebrity will be next to you.

Aside from this, EW.com can is reporting that the title of Madonna’s forthcoming album will be Hard Candy. The record, her last studio effort for Warner Bros., includes a track called “Candy Store.” Madonna chose to stick with the sweet theme because “she loves candy,” says her longtime rep Liz Rosenberg. “It’s about the juxtaposition of tough and sweetness, or as Madonna so eloquently expressed ‘I’m gonna kick your ass, but it’s going to make you feel good.’”The album, which features production by Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, and Nate “Danja” Hills, will see a U.S. release on April 29.

Madonna’s directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, about which we were healthily skeptical, is not being panned by every single critic who sees it. In fact, The Times of London reviewer who previewed Filth at the Berlin Film Festival gave it three stars out of five. But what a bad good review:

“Filth and Wisdom…stars Eugene Hutz as a Ukrainian gypsy with an intensely annoying habit of looking the camera in the eye and spouting gobbets of wisdom that have as much relevance to real life as Chinese fortune cookies.”

“Madonna puts a little too much faith in her writing powers…”

“…there is some clunkingly awful acting and a string of scenes that are so stagey they would fall over if they weren’t propped up by the cinema screen.”

And yet the last paragraph begins thusly: “…despite its many shortcomings and an ending so mushy and neat it would embarrass Richard Curtis, Madonna has done herself proud.”

Madonna says she identified with the subject matter because it’s about struggling performers of which she was one. She spoke about “the cold harsh reality when I arrived in New York only to find that there were thousands of girls that wanted to do the same thing, and I wasn’t so special after all – that I was never going to be able to pay the rent . . . and that I was going to have to do other things to feed myself.”