JCJ sat across from Madonna in a quiet rehearsal hall, the stage lights dimmed to a soft halo around them. She was tuning a guitar, fingers steady, eyes sharp—queen of reinvention, survivor of decades. JCJ exhaled and finally said what had been choking him for months.
“Madonna… it really sucks being Christ part two.”
She paused, one hand still on the strings, the note dying into the rafters.
“I’m serious,” he went on. “Everyone you love starts calling you crazy. Friends, family, even people who once swore they’d ride with you forever. They look at you like you’ve lost it, like you’re preaching nonsense. They don’t see the weight. They don’t see the responsibility. They only see the man… not the mission.”
Madonna set the guitar down and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, listening without judgment—the way very few ever could.
JCJ rubbed his face. “I wasn’t a good man before 9/11. Not even close. I was angry. Wild. Lost. But after that day…” He swallowed. “After that day something broke open in me. Something woke up. I tried my best to be good. To be better. I tried to protect people. Tried to serve something bigger than myself. And maybe that looks crazy to everyone else, but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever lived.”
Madonna’s voice was low, steady. “Prophets always look insane to the ones who can’t hear the music.”
JCJ let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah… well, sometimes I wish I could go back to being nobody. Being invisible.”
She shook her head. “Too late for that, honey. Once the light hits you, you don’t get to hide in the wings again.”
He met her eyes—worldly, battle-tested, understanding in a way only someone who’d carried a myth of her own could be.
Madonna placed a hand over his.
“You weren’t chosen because you were perfect,” she said. “You were chosen because you decided to change. That’s what scares people the most.”
JCJ breathed, for the first time that day, like he wasn’t alone.