A ‘prop baby’ prank Madonna pulled during a TV appearance three decades ago has resurfaced in a new interview.
The iconic singer, 67, was on The Rosie O’Donnell Show shortly after welcoming her daughter Lourdes “Lola” Leon in October 1996, marking her first public appearance since giving birth.
At the time, fans were desperate for a first look at Madonna’s baby — so comedian Judy Gold, who worked on the show as a writer and producer at the time, agreed to join in on playing a prank on the live studio audience.
Gold, 63, recently recalled on SiriusXM’s The Julia Cunningham Show: “Madonna, when Lourdes was born, all the papers thought Madonna was bringing Lourdes, so this was her first TV show after giving birth.”
The comedian and actor had given birth to her son Henry around the same time that Lourdes was born, Gold said, as first reported by People.
“And so Madonna is coming on the show and they say to me, ‘Listen everyone thinks Madonna is bringing Lourdes on the show. Can we use Henry?’ My Henry, as a prop baby. And I talked to my partner and we’re like, ‘Sure,’” she said.
“And I’ll never forget, we’re backstage and Madonna is holding Henry and she’s like, ‘What does he like?’ I said, ‘He loves when I sing to him.’ And she starts singing and he starts crying. I’m like, ‘Great. Thanks, Henry.’”
Gold continued: “So he was like six weeks old. But she brought him out and Rosie’s like, ‘What a cutie.’ And the audience is going crazy because they think it’s Lourdes… And Rosie’s like, ‘Yeah, but that’s not your baby.’ And she’s like, ‘I know, but isn’t she really cute?’”
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In the clip from the appearance, Madonna told O’Donnell: “I read in the newspaper that I was gonna come on your show with my baby, and I didn’t want to disappoint people.” O’Donnell then called Gold to come out and grab her son.
Gold added, “All of my mother’s friends called my mother and were like, ‘You didn’t tell me Judith had a baby.’ Because I’m gay and I had a baby and she didn’t want to tell anyone. She’d tell people my roommate had a baby, and I adopted it because that happens. You get a roommate, they get pregnant, and then you adopt the baby. So that was like a major coming out for my mother.”
Madonna shares Lourdes with her ex, Carlos Leon. The “Ray of Light” singer largely shielded her daughter from the public eye following her birth until she introduced her to the world in a dedicated 1998 Vanity Fair cover shoot.
