Madonna's messy divorce from Guy Ritchie gives the pop star a chance to recast herself for the better, but at the moment her public image is that of a voracious celebrity monster, steamrolling Ritchie and turning Alex Rodriguez into a glaze-eyed cult follower. The Sun is reporting for tomorrow's paper that Madonna is supposedly spying on her ex, "using her huge staff to report his every move," and that director Ritchie is desperately trying to counter gossip spread by the singer's PR machine that he's a bad father. Over at the Daily Mail, the dirt is about how Alex Rodriguez is said to be spending 40 million pounds (which sounds high) to buy an apartment two blocks away from Madonna, after pleasing her with his dedication to Kabbalah:

He has made promises to her to write a range of sports-themed books to bring the message of Kabbalah to young boys. Madonna has already brought out a similar range of books for girls.

A friend of the singer said... "Madonna has also tested Alex on his knowledge of Kabbalah text and he did remarkably well.

Madonna is also said to be thrilled that the Yankees slugger, in the midst of a divorce in which Madonna is named as the "other woman," sees her as "a spiritual being and not a famous person," according to the Mail, which sounds a lot like A-Rod is worshipping her like some kind of demigod.

Normally, it would be a PR coup for a 50-year-old singer to have a strapping young baseball player spending tens of millions of dollars to chase her around town like some kind of puppy dog. Especially when, supposedly, he hasn't even slept with her yet. And maybe it still is! But the Kabbalah stuff, A-rod's messy divorce and the alleged bullying of Ritchie cast a pall over all the positive angles.

But Madonna's got of plenty of time left in the spotlight to correct that. Her messy divorce is, at the moment, the only decent gossip story going.