A rare insight 'MY FRIEND MADONNA'

The make-up artist reveals the star was always a Ray of Light

It doesn’t matter how rich and famous you are, every diva needs a best friend – and for Madonna, that’s sassy Goodfellas star Debi Mazar.

This month, the Queen of Pop – and best-selling female recording artist of all time – turns 65 and although she’s still recovering from a serious bacterial infection that derailed her upcoming concert tour, her longtime friend will undoubtedly be there to celebrate the milestone.

“We are old best friends,” says Debi, 59, of her pop icon friend. “We’ve been very close for a very, very long time – before she even cut a record.

“We’ve seen a lot of things together. She’s a great girl, super-smart, a great mother and a good friend.”

Indeed, mum-of-two Debi has ridden the highs and lows of Madonna’s colourful life, through the star’s two tumultuous marriages, the birth of two children and the adoption of four more, her chart-topping highs, career lows and most recently, illness.

It was back in New York in 1982 that the tight twosome first met.

Four years earlier, in 1978, Madge had dropped out of university in her native Michigan and headed for the bright lights of the Big Apple.

“It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab,” she later recalled. “I came with $35 in my pocket. I didn’t know a soul. I was saying ‘hi’ to people on the streets like a dork.”

She paid her rent doing everything from waitressing to nude modelling and dreamed of being a professional dancer before deciding there were bigger dreams to be chased.