Christopher Ciccone, a multihyphenate artist, dancer, designer and younger brother of Madonna, has died. He was 63. Ciccone died Friday in Michigan, his representative Brad Taylor told The Associated Press Sunday. He had cancer.
Madonna posted a tribute to him on Instagram Sunday with a carousel of photos from over the years.
“He was the closest human to me for so long,” she wrote. “Its hard to explain our bond. But it grew out of an understanding that we were different and society was going to give us a hard time for not following the status quo. We took each other’s hands and we danced through the madness of our childhood.”
Madonna wrote that discovering dance in their small Midwestern town saved them both, and that their ballet teacher created a safe space for her brother to be gay.
A dancer since his youth, Ciccone was deeply intertwined with his sister’s rise in pop stardom in the 1980s, appearing in music videos like “Lucky Star,” art directing her Blond Ambition World Tour and serving as tour director for The Girlie Show tour. He also directed music videos for Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett.