Roger Friedman Is Off The Madonna Train

Last week, Fox gossip and avowed Warner Music Group enemy Roger Friedman was pooh-poohing rumors of an affair between Madonna and existentially troubled Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, saying that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt dreamed up by their shared manager Guy Oseary. But now that Madonna’s been named in the divorce papers served to A-Rod by his wife Cynthia, Friedman has picked up his poison pen and written a bizarre item about the “affair of the heart” between the two maybe being the culprit behind A-Rod’s groin injury in April, which landed him on the DL but apparently didn’t stop him from attending Madge’s Roseland show. Friedman’s so peeved, in fact, that he’s even backtracking on his claims that tickets to Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour are selling like hotcakes!

What’s interesting about all that is Madonna moved her base of operations from London to New York for this “Sweet and Sticky Tour,” opting to rehearse every day in Brooklyn, of all places. This is a little odd, considering the tour begins in Great Britain on Aug. 23 and doesn’t come to America until Oct. 4 at the New Jersey Meadowlands.

According to her Web site, Madonna.com, there are plenty of tickets available in most major American cities, including New York and Boston. Apparently, all this publicity — a lot of which this reporter admittedly thought was being generated to sell tickets — has not helped much at all.

Quite a change from the claims of this tour “[outpacing] Madonna’s last tour significantly” that he was making two weeks ago. Either he’s not someone you want to scorn, or maybe his assistant finally checked out Ticketmaster? At any rate, watching Friedman’s worm turn in real time is yet another reason why I want this story to never ever end. (And here is another one.)

Did Madonna Injure A-Rod? [Fox 411]