Tragic Details About Madonna's Son Rocco Ritchie

It should come as no surprise that Rocco Ritchie, son of Madonna and Guy Ritchie, is a talented and creative artist. The young man spent years both studying and perfecting his craft, and has developed a unique painting style that has taken the art world by storm. "I was fortunate enough to know what I wanted to do at a young age and once I had settled into art school, it kick-started my work," Rocco told Vogue Hong Kong. The artist has since then taken part in a number of exhibitions, including one which he held in the Miami Design District in April of 2024.

Rocco's work has earned many fans of the years, but arguably his biggest supporter is his pop superstar mother. "The long and winding road through all your many moods and incarnations has been tumultuous and full of surprises," she wrote on Instagram on his 24th birthday in 2024. "But through it all — your curiosity, and Artistic Soul has been the glue that held us together. Thank God for Art."

While his life might sound charmed on paper, things haven't always been easy for Madonna's son. Rocco's faced legal troubles, weathered a lot of family drama, and been subjected to the harsh gaze of the public eye.

On August 11, 2000, Rocco Ritchie made his entrance into the world, though the hours leading up to the infant's birth were far from easy. Earlier that day, his mother, Madonna, was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, as the singer was experiencing severe abdominal pain in addition to abnormal bleeding. As it turned out, Madonna was dealing with the likes of a detached placenta, which in turn was cutting off Rocco's oxygen. In order to save both the baby and his mother, doctors would need to perform an emergency C-section, which is exactly what they did. "Madonna lost a lot of blood," a hospital source shared with the BBC. "For any mother, just seeing that amount of blood is terrifying." Luckily, the star would have the support of her then boyfriend, Guy Ritchie, who stood by her side for the entirety of the procedure.

Though he ended up being born three weeks early, Rocco was nothing short of a happy and healthy baby. He weighed in at 5 pounds, 9 ounces. "Madonna is overjoyed," the singer's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg told the BBC, sure to share the most important details with the outlet following the stressful day for all. "She is safe, as is little Rocco," Rosenberg continued. "Guy and Lourdes are by her side."

When raising her eldest children, Madonna implemented some household rules to try to keep things on the rails. Evidently, she could be a little tough. On a 2012 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" (via USA Today), Rocco Ritchie was asked about his mom's parenting style. When DeGeneres suggested Madonna might be "strict," he replied, "She's a good mother. Yes. That's all I have to say. She's very strict but in a good way,"

In a 2021 chat with Debi Mazar for Interview, Madonna's daughter Lourdes Leon offered a glimpse into how strict their mom could be. "The list of things I wasn't allowed to do is never-ending," she said. "My mom is such a control freak, and she has controlled me my whole life." A source told Page Six that the kids not only had to stick to Madonna's strict sugar-free, dairy-free, salt-free, and preservative-free diet, but watching television was also a no-go. 

Evidently, Rocco grew frustrated with his mother's rules when he was a teen. As a result, this drove a wedge between them, and Rocco began favoring his father more and more. "When he stays with his father . . . Rocco is allowed to play guitar until the early hours of the morning. Guy does have rules, but he had zero confidence growing up and wants his son to feel as empowered as possible," one of Guy Richie's colleagues told Page Six.

When he was just 14 years old, Madonna and Guy Ritchie's son sparked controversy when he uploaded a graphic video of members of ISIS killing civilians. In the caption, Rocco Ritchie urged his Instagram followers to gain some perspective and recognize that there are unspeakable things happening around the world. "I think if you're still being a d**k to people, I would stop," he wrote (via Express). "We've got a little worse of a problem on our hands here guys. We don't need more negative a** holes here."

His post did not go over well, and it was not long before a number of angry comments flooded the teen's account. "A 14 year old boy really shouldn't be watching & posting things like this. Very disturbing," one comment read. "Rocco Ritchie has problems. WTF was he thinking posting that video," another person wrote.

Rocco deleted the video in the wake of the backlash. After the video was taken down, his mom took to her own Instagram account to stand by her child's message. "I applaud my son's desire to express his outrage by posting footage of ISIS on Instagram. Humans are becoming numb to this violent imagery," Madonna wrote. "He is saying our problems are nothing compared to whats going on around the world. Freedom Fighting is in his blood. Lets pray for PEACE!"

It's totally normal for kids to be embarrassed of their parents' antics, but imagine being the kid of a super famous pop star who tends to put it all out there on social media. Apparently, Madonna's Instagram content became a serious issue for Rocco Ritchie. So much so, he reportedly blocked her. 

As an unnamed source told The Sun in January 2016 (via Cosmopolitan), "It's not a great sign that Rocco is blocking his mum on social media, especially after all the rumors that she was embarrassing him with her posts about him." To make matters even messier, this was going on while Madonna and Guy Ritchie were in the middle of their custody battle. 

Whispers regarding Rocco's negative feelings regarding Madge's IG account had been simmering for some time. In 2015, a source claimed to TMZ that Madonna's posts about him apparently made him feel like a "trophy" rather than her son. Rocco has not called out any of her posts specifically, but TMZ did note that the teen probably wasn't happy about his mom including an inappropriate hashtag alongside a video she took of him doing a backflip in his underwear. Later that year, the Daily Mail reported that Rocco didn't want to spend Christmas with his mom. There was a lot of speculation about what was going on behind the scenes; some suspected the IG drama was to blame.

When Rocco Ritchie was 12 years old, he joined his mother on her 2012 MDNA Tour. A few years later, Rocco was ready to hit the road with Madonna again. However, his time on the Rebel Heart Tour would be cut short. According to an insider, the teen and his mother began butting heads after only a few months into the tour. "M and Rocco were having bad shouting matches. She'd be crying and yelling at him," the source claimed to RadarOnline. When the show reached London later that year, Rocco apparently ditched Madonna and headed to his father's house.

According to unnamed sources, Rocco apparently did not like the way things were going this time around. "Rocco spent most of the second half of 2015 on tour with his mother and got upset about not spending enough time with her," one of Guy Ritchie's colleagues told Page Six. "Even by her ruthless standards, Madonna has been particularly driven on the tour, and when Rocco did see her, he felt like she was trying to micromanage his life."

As previously noted, Rocco Ritchie left the Rebel Heart Tour in late 2015 and was ready to spend the holidays with his father in London. However, Madonna was not cool with this. According to Page Six, Madonna requested that he head back to New York so they could be together for Christmas. The 15-year-old was not eager to oblige.

Denying his mother's request would be the beginning of a messy legal battle for Rocco Ritchie, as Madonna decided to take the matter to court almost immediately. However, even after a judge ordered Rocco go with Madonna, Guy Ritchie's team fought this decision. "He has expressed very clearly that he does not want to return to New York," Guy's lawyer told the judge, as reported by Page Six. But instead of issuing a warrant following Rocco's denial of the initial ruling, Kaplan advised Madonna and Guy to reach an agreement.

The entire legal battle was said to be incredibly hard on Rocco Ritchie. The teenager's court-appointed lawyer Ellen Sigal noticed such signs of emotional strain, which she would share with the court in addition to her wishes for Rocco's future. "It's been a very difficult time for him," Sigal said, as reported by the BBC. "We hope to put an end to this as soon as possible without exposing him to more litigation, press innuendo, any of that kind of thing." Madonna and Guy reached a deal in September 2016, and Rocco continued to live in London. 

On September 28, 2016, Rocco Ritchie and another kid got in trouble while hanging out in the wealthy North London neighborhood of Primrose Hill. As a source told The Sun, residents called the police after they supposedly saw the two boys "smoking or doing drugs" in the area. Rocco was arrested for cannabis possession after the cops found traces of marijuana in his backpack and on his clothing. Because this was a smaller offense, Madonna and Guy Ritchie's son did not face criminal charges. Rather, Camden's Youth Offending Team followed a triage scheme, a process that aims to keep kids out of the criminal justice system. Though this arrest would not earn him a criminal record, it would still be part of his permanent record. 

Madonna stood by Rocco through all of it. "I love my son very much," the pop star told the AP. "I will do whatever I can to give him the support that he needs, and I ask that you respect our privacy at this time." 

While his mom took the matter seriously, Rocco's pals apparently weren't too rattled by it. "Everyone thinks the Rocco thing is hilarious. He's in trouble after bunning," a source claimed to The Mirror. "His friends have been joking about #freerocco since the news came out."

After Rocco Ritchie's arrest, some locals began speaking out on Guy Ritchie and Madonna's kids behalf. According to the unnamed sources, Rocco was not a bad or mischievous kid. Rather, these unnamed sources were quick to place the blame on his friend group. "He is a polite boy, but he hangs around with boys from an estate who are not so polite," a neighbor told the Daily Mail in 2016. "He goes to a school nearby here for wealthy children who are maybe not as intellectual .... I wouldn't want to get him in trouble."

The cannabis arrest wasn't the only drama. According to the Daily Mail, Rocco also got caught sneaking into local bars when he was still under the legal drinking age. "Around the time he was arrested I used to see him in the local pub. I don't think they ever served him because they know who he is and he's 16," the Daily Mail's source continued. "Some of the boys from the local estate, they are the ones who used to scale the walls to get into the pub." 

Evidently, all the chatter didn't slow him down from hitting the pubs underage. In 2017, The Sun shared photos of Rocco, who was 17 at the time, hanging out in front of a London pub while drinking a pint of something. The following year, the Daily Mail released more photos of Rocco at another pub, but noted there's no reason to assume he was drinking alcohol. 

On June 24, 2023, Madonna was hospitalized after experiencing a serious health scare. She suffered a bacterial infection while rehearsing for The Celebration Tour. Tragically, it seemed Madonna's initial chances of survival were slim, so her children and relatives were contacted immediately following her admittance. "For the past couple of days, no one really knew which direction this was going to turn, and her family was preparing for the worst," a relative of the singer shared with the Daily Mail. "That is why it was kept a secret since Saturday. Everyone believed that we may lose her and that has been the reality of the situation."

When she was still in the hospital, Rocco Ritchie and David Banda were spotted visiting their mother's apartment in New York City. The two were the first of Madonna's six children to be seen out and about since news of her condition broke. Understandably, the two boys looked solemn as they made their way up to their mom's home. 

Thankfully, the singer would make a full recovery. A month after her hospitalization, Madonna reflected on how much it meant to have her kids by her side. "As a Mother you can really get caught up In the needs Of your children and the seemingly endless giving. ... But when the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference," she wrote on Instagram. 

Even though he's the son of Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Rocco Ritchie was determined to pave his own path in the art world without the "nepo baby" label hovering overhead. So, in 2018 he began creating art under the pseudonym "Rhed." He found some success straight away. "I'm proud of who I am and where I've come from, but I know people would have judged me aggressively in my early stages if I came out with my name," Rocco said in a 2024 interview with Artnet. "I wanted to develop technically before showing under my name."

In 2021, Page Six revealed Rhed's true identity, and the backlash poured in. The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones stated that Rocco's art simply wasn't ready for this level of attention or interest. "His paintings are clumsy adolescent efforts with no sign of originality or vigour," he wrote. "It therefore seems a shame that Rhed has been put into the public eye when he's just not, at this point, a real artist." Art writers Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad added, "It's a shame when artists create work that looks like modern art instead of contemporary art ... And the dramatic reveal: 'suspiciously successful kid in art world secretly has incredibly rich famous parents' isn't surprising or new, but it is s***."

Despite the negative press, Rocco's kept at his art. In 2024, Madonna posted some snaps she took at one of his shows. "So Proud," she wrote on Instagram.