Rocco Ritchie has been trying to make his way in the world independent of his famous parents, but he's had to deal with some health scares and ugly legal battles as he forges his own identity.
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00:00Rocco Ricci has been trying to make his way in the world independent of his famous parents,
00:05but he's had to deal with some health scares and ugly legal battles as he forges his own identity.
00:12Rocco Ricci was born on August 11, 2000, but the hours leading up to that moment were far from
00:18easy. Earlier that day, his mother was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles
00:24as she was experiencing severe abdominal pain and abnormal bleeding. As it turned out,
00:29Madonna was dealing with a detached placenta, which in turn was cutting off her baby's oxygen.
00:34So to save both Rocco and his mom, doctors had to perform an emergency C-section. Rocco's dad
00:40Guy Ricci, who was Madonna's boyfriend at the time, was there by her side for the entirety
00:45of the procedure. Though Rocco ended up being born three weeks early, he was still a happy
00:51and healthy baby, as he weighed in at 5 pounds, 9 ounces. His mom's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg,
00:57told the BBC,
00:58"[Madonna is overjoyed. She is safe, as is little Rocco. Guy and Lourdes are by her side."
01:05When he was just 14 years old, Rocco Ricci sparked some controversy when he uploaded
01:10to Instagram a graphic video of members of ISIS killing civilians. In the caption,
01:15he urged his followers to gain some perspective and recognize that there are unspeakable things
01:19happening in the world. As he put it bluntly,
01:22I think if you're still being a d---- to people, I would stop. We've got a little
01:26worse of a problem on our hands here, guys. We don't need more negative a-----s here."
01:31This post didn't exactly go over well, as a number of angry comments flooded Rocco's account.
01:36As one person put it,
01:38A 14-year-old boy really shouldn't be watching and posting things like this. Very disturbing.
01:43Rocco deleted the video in the wake of the backlash, although his mom took to her own
01:47Instagram to stand by his message. As she put it,
01:51I applaud my son's desire to express his outrage by posting footage of ISIS on Instagram.
01:56Humans are becoming numb to this violent imagery.
01:59In 2012, a 12-year-old Rocco Ricci joined his pop star mom on her MDNA tour. A few years later,
02:06he was ready to hit the road with her again for 2015's Rebel Heart Tour. However, this time,
02:11things ended up getting cut a little short, as Rocco and Madonna reportedly began butting heads
02:16after just a few months into the tour. As an insider told Radar,
02:21Em and Rocco were having bad shouting matches. She'd be crying and yelling at him.
02:26So, when the show reached London later that year,
02:28Rocco reportedly decided to leave and head to his father's house.
02:31As an associate of Guy Ritchie's told Page Six,
02:34Rocco spent most of the second half of 2015 on tour with his mother and got upset about
02:39not spending enough time with her. Even by her ruthless standards,
02:43Madonna has been particularly driven on the tour, and when Rocco did see her,
02:47he felt like she was trying to micromanage his life.
02:50Mom's being mom.
02:52After Rocco left the Rebel Heart Tour at the end of 2015, he was ready to spend the holidays with
02:58his father in London. But his mom reportedly wasn't okay with this. According to Page Six,
03:03she requested that he head back to New York so they could be together for Christmas,
03:07but he wasn't exactly eager to oblige. This ended up being the beginning of a messy legal battle,
03:13as Madonna decided to take the matter to court. A judge ordered Rocco to go with his mom,
03:18but then his father's team fought the decision. As Guy Ritchie's lawyer Eric Buckley told the judge,
03:23"...he has expressed very clearly that he does not want to return to New York."
03:27Ultimately, Judge Deborah Kaplan advised Rocco's parents to reach an agreement.
03:32This whole ordeal was reportedly incredibly hard on Rocco.
03:36His court-appointed lawyer, Ellen Siegel, noticed signs of emotional strain,
03:40which she shared with the court in addition to her wishes for Rocco's future. As she explained,
03:45"...it's been a very difficult time for him. We hope to put an end to this as soon as possible
03:49without exposing him to more litigation, press innuendo, any of that kind of thing."
03:55Madonna and Guy Ritchie ultimately reached a deal in September 2016
03:59that allowed Rocco to continue to live in London.
04:02On September 28, 2016, Rocco Ritchie and a friend got in trouble while hanging out
04:07in the wealthy North London neighborhood of Primrose Hill. As a source told The Sun,
04:12residents called the police after they saw the two boys smoking or doing drugs in the area.
04:16Rocco was arrested for cannabis possession after the cops found traces of marijuana in his backpack
04:22and on his clothing.
04:23"...try not to kill all your brain cells."
04:25Because this was a minor offense, Rocco ultimately didn't face any criminal charges.
04:30Instead, Camden Borough's youth offending team implemented a triage scheme,
04:34a process that aims to keep kids out of the criminal justice system.
04:38So though this arrest wouldn't earn him a criminal record, it would still be part
04:41of his permanent record. Madonna stood by Rocco throughout the whole incident,
04:46as she said in a statement,
04:48"...I love my son very much. I will do whatever I can to give him the support that he needs,
04:53and I ask that you respect our privacy at this time."
04:56Rocco's pals, on the other hand, apparently weren't too rattled by the situation.
05:00As a source told The Mirror,
05:02"...everyone thinks the Rocco thing is hilarious. His friends have been joking
05:06about free Rocco since the news came out. He's not a wild child, he's a normal teenager.
05:11There are people in his circle who are a lot more misbehaved than him."
05:16After Rocco Richie's arrest, some locals began speaking out on his behalf,
05:20as they claimed that he wasn't a bad kid. Instead,
05:23they were quick to place the blame on his friend group.
05:25As an anonymous neighbor of his told the Daily Mail in 2016,
05:29"...he is a polite boy, but he hangs around with boys from an estate who are not so polite.
05:33He goes to a school nearby here for wealthy children who are maybe not as intellectual.
05:38I wouldn't want to get him in trouble."
05:40But the cannabis arrest wasn't the only drama in Rocco's life around this time.
05:44He was also reportedly caught sneaking into local bars when he was still under the legal
05:49drinking age. As his neighbor told the Daily Mail,
05:52"...around the time he was arrested, I used to see him in the local pub.
05:55I don't think they ever served him because they know who he is and he's 16.
05:59Some of the boys from the local estate, they are the ones who used to scale the walls to get
06:03into the pub." But all this chatter didn't exactly slow him down from hitting the pubs
06:08while underage. In 2017, The Sun shared photos of a 17-year-old Rocco hanging out in front of
06:14a London pub while drinking a pint. The following year, the Daily Mail released photos of him at
06:19another pub, while also noting there wasn't necessarily any reason to assume that he was
06:23drinking alcohol. On June 24, 2023, Madonna was hospitalized for a serious bacterial infection
06:31while rehearsing for the Celebration Tour. It was so serious that her initial chances of survival
06:36were reportedly quite slim. So her family was contacted immediately. As a relative of hers
06:42told the Daily Mail,
06:43"...for the past couple of days, no one really knew which direction this was going to turn,
06:48and her family was preparing for the worst. That's why it was kept a secret since Saturday.
06:52Everyone believed that we may lose her, and that has been the reality of the situation."
06:57"...a lot of people, of course, just stunned by this."
06:59When Madonna was still in the hospital, Rocco and his brother, David Banda,
07:03were spotted visiting their mother's apartment in New York City.
07:06They were the first of her six children to be seen out and about since news of her condition broke.
07:11They reportedly looked solemn as they made their way up to their mom's home.
07:14Fortunately, Madonna ultimately made a full recovery. A month after her hospitalization,
07:20she reflected on how much it meant to have her kids by her side when she wrote on Instagram,
07:24"...as a mother, you could really get caught up in the needs of your children,
07:27and the seemingly endless giving. But when the chips were down, my children really showed up
07:32for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference."
07:37Even though he's the son of two famous entertainers, Rocco Ricci was determined
07:41to pave his own path without the label of Nepo Baby hanging over him.
07:45So in 2018, he began creating art under the pseudonym of Red,
07:50and he actually managed to find some success. As he told ArtNet in 2021,
07:55"...I'm proud of who I am and where I've come from, but I know people would have judged me
07:58aggressively in my early stages if I came out with my name. I wanted to develop technically
08:03before showing under my name." But it wasn't all smooth sailing, as Page Six revealed Red's
08:08true identity in 2021, and the attention from the art world wasn't particularly favorable.
08:14The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones opined that Rocco's work simply wasn't ready for this level
08:19of attention or interest. As he put it, his paintings are clumsy, adolescent efforts with
08:24no sign of originality or vigor. It therefore seems a shame that Red has been put into the
08:29public eye when he's just not, at this point, a real artist. And art writers Gabriela De La
08:35Puente and Zarina Muhammad added, "...it's a shame when artists create work that looks
08:40like modern art instead of contemporary art." And the dramatic reveal, Suspiciously Successful
08:45Kid in Art World Secretly Has Incredibly Rich Famous Parents, isn't surprising or new,
08:50but it is s***. Despite the negative press, Rocco has remained devoted to his art.
08:55In 2024, his mom posted some snaps that she took at one of his shows on Instagram
09:00while also declaring how proud she was.