Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Ciccone, dies at age 81 of ‘very aggressive cancer’
She was 81. Joan Clare Ciccone married Silvio Ciccone in 1966, three years after the pop star’s mother died. The two had a tumultuous and fraught relationship, though in later years appeared to have softened, according to People. Madonna’s mother died at age 30 in December 1963, when her daughter was just 5.