Madonna reached out to Sabrina Carpenter via an Instagram DM.
The 67-year-old singer has teamed up with the Espresso hitmaker on Bring Your Love, the lead single from her upcoming album Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II and she's revealed she directly arranged the collaboration, even though it was a risky way of getting in touch as she was prepared for Sabrina not to believe the message was really from her.
Speaking to Graham Norton on a BBC special which aired in the UK on Friday (26.06.26) night, she said: “I sent her a DM on Instagram. Sometimes, you DM people and you are like, ‘They are never going to believe that it’s me . . .’. I just said, ‘I am making a new record and I would love to collaborate with you . . . ’. It ended up being Bring Your Love, it worked perfectly.”
While the new album is expected to be hugely successful, Madonna has no expectations, just as she didn't for its companion record, 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor.
She said: “I don’t have any expectations. I have been doing this for a long time. You know, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
"[With the first Confessions] it was mind-blowing as we didn’t have any idea how brilliant it was. No, I am just kidding. But it was a huge success. It took me by surprise.
“I’m excited for people to hear the whole album because it’s a whole story. It’s a whole journey.”
A particularly emotional track on the album, Fragile, is about Madonna's late brother Christopher Ciccone, who died in 2024 after battling cancer, and she admitted she has yet to play the personal song to her 95-year-old father Silvio because she worries it will be too much for him.
Asked if he had heard it, Madonna said: “No. I am going to see him soon and he will. I don’t want to push him over the edge.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the Beautiful Stranger singer hinted she could finally headline Glastonbury next year.
She said: “I think I will do promo tours for a while and then, in the summertime, something bigger . . . ”
Graham replied: “That sounds really exciting, I think I know what you’re talking about . . . Is it in this country?”
Madonna teased: “It could be . . . Why do you have to know everything?”
The Vogue hitmaker was expected to perform at the festival in 2024 after Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis was seen in the audience at one of the London dates on her Celebration tour in 2023, but Madonna returned to the recording studio with producer Stuart Price immediately after the run of shows ended.
She said: “Finally, when the tour ended, for the last year it’s just been one big soundcheck. We have been playing in the studio. Hence Confessions II.”
