Madonna shared a deeply personal moment with her elder daughter, Lourdes Leon, when they decided to record a song together. The pop icon, 68, and Lourdes, 29, have long shared a complex mother-daughter relationship dynamic.
Madonna herself has said that Lourdes held ‘years of unspoken resentment’ towards her. But their collaboration gave them a rare opportunity to confront the love, tension, and unresolved feelings in their relationship.
Madonna and Lourdes share their emotional experience while recording The Test
The mother-daughter duo joined Bob the Drag Queen for a conversation that aired on iHeartRadio Live on September 24, 2026, where they opened up about making The Test, their collaboration on Madonna’s album Confessions II.
For Madonna, the experience was unexpectedly emotional. And the same goes for her 29-year-old daughter. Reflecting on the experience that she can only describe as “magical,” Madonna said:
“There were moments in the writing process when we were in the studio, I felt like crying, where I felt like hugging her.”
Lourdes, meanwhile, admitted that she cried during the process herself. More than just a musical collaboration, the song gave the mother and daughter a way to be vulnerable and address the feelings they had struggled to express directly. Madonna noted:
“We don’t always agree on things, but we love creativity, and art has always connected us. It was a very magical moment, and we both had to be vulnerable.”
Madonna and Lourdes shared a strained relationship for years, but they finally found their path towards healing through music. The Test, which appears on Confessions II, explores the complicated reality of growing up as Madonna’s daughter.
In the song, Madonna reflects on the intense scrutiny Lourdes faced because of her mother’s fame, acknowledging that she did not fully understand how that attention might affect her daughter. Lourdes, meanwhile, sings about establishing her own identity while living in the shadow of one of the world’s most recognizable performers. The lyrics explore their differences while also emphasizing how deeply connected they remain.
Lourdes suggested the collaboration, but she was ‘very reluctant’ to work with Madonna
The idea to record together came from Lourdes. Explaining why she approached her mother, the model and musician said that relationships between mothers and daughters can contain plenty of feelings that remain unspoken. Lourdes said during the conversation:
“I think that between a mother and a daughter in a relationship … there’s a lot of things that are unspoken…but also a lot of tension and emotions that are difficult to put into words. A way that I thought would be easier for us to speak about these things would be maybe through art, which is always something that my mom and I have connected over.”
However, they both knew the healing journey meant confronting years of pent-up emotions. In a previous interview with Graham Norton, Madonna revealed that after years of strain in their relationship, Lourdes was initially reluctant to work alongside her. Given her mother’s breakout fame, she never wanted her career to be defined by it. She shared:
“[Lourdes] approached me; she’s been very revenant to work with me. She doesn’t want to be perceived as my daughter, taking advantage of her privilege… She’s been very standoffish and working at her own pace, and I respect that deeply. She’s a great songwriter and has a much better voice than I do.”
For Lourdes, asking her mother was surprisingly straightforward, even though she described Madonna as an intimidating person. “I’m not intimidated by many people as a result of her being my mom,” she told Bob the Drag Queen, adding that approaching her about the song felt like an easy, natural decision.
During the iHeartRadio conversation, Lourdes recalled having dreams about her maternal grandmother, Madonna Louise Fortin Ciccone, who died of breast cancer when Madonna was only five years old. She thus viewed the song as a way to honor that unanswered part of their family history while bringing her and Madonna closer. Healing through creativity had always been central to the project.
Confessions II was released on July 3, 2026, and critics have already dubbed it Madonna’s best album in 20 years.
Image courtesy: Madonna/Instagram, Lourdes Leon/Instagram
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