Jennifer Grey’s new memoir “Out Of My Corner” hits bookstores next month. In a new interview with PEOPLE, the Dirty Dancing star opens up about her close friendship with Madonna and how she inspired one of the pop star’s most memorable hits.
Quick backstory: Grey dated Matthew Broderick, who she met on the set of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, for four years in the mid-’80s. At one point, the two were engaged, but she called off the wedding and started dating Johnny Depp instead. At the time, she was also close friends with Madonna.
“It was like a f*cking bonfire,” she tells PEOPLE. “But none of my friends knew who he was. We didn’t watch that TV show. Madonna didn’t watch 21 Jump Street!”
Grey and Madonna appeared in the 1989 movie Bloodhounds of Broadway together. It was around this same time that Grey ended things with Broderick.
“She told me she wrote ‘Express Yourself’ about me breaking up with Matthew,” the actress recalls. “She played it for me in her car. I was in my log cabin with Johnny and she said, ‘Come into my car.’ And I got in her Mercedes where she had a really good sound system and she was like, ‘Listen to this song I just did. It’s about you.'”
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Looking back on relationships with both Broderick and Depp, Grey adds, “What I’ve learned is that I demanded second best.”
“Express Yourself” was released as the second single off Madonna’s Like A Prayer album. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Madonna’s eighth number-one hit on the European Hot 100 Singles chart. It also reached the top of the singles charts in Canada and Switzerland, and the top five elsewhere.
The song’s accompanying music video had a total production budget of $5 million, making it the most expensive music video ever made at the time. It remains the third most expensive music video ever made today.
Troyfight
…hmm.
cuteguy
If this were a lie Madonna would say something bc she’s never been shy about expressing herself. You know that the queens are going to be up in arms about this revelation. I think it’s a beautiful story about a beautiful friendship. Ppl won’t believe it bc there was no social media back then to prove it
storm45701
Well, we see how Johnny Depp turned out. The drug-addled wife-beater is second best to everyone. Glad Grey got away.
BLAKENOW
OMG whoever you are just STOP with the BS, seriously Depp didn’t lay a hand on Heard, that psycho did all of that mess to her self . Are you wealthy and successful like Depp? No? that’s probably why you are trolling . just stop.
storm45701
Wow… defensive much? Over a celebrity? Looks like Heard has made her case. And Depp admitted he has/had a drug addiction. How old are you? 14? Trolling is provocation. I was just stating FACTS, hunty.
ShiningSex
@BLAKENOW, How would you know that he never laid a hand on her? Did you not see the video proof she had of his abuse? He admits to his addiction as well. He’s garbage. Ugly as sin and overrated actor.
ShiningSex
Madonna is so tired. Can’t remember last time she had a decent album.
Den
Get a grip. She is 63 and has had a career just shy of 40 years. She is probably on auto-pilot at this point.
As far as I am concerned she has always been a third rate singer. But she has been a first rate entertainer (it is a different thing) and changed the game completely for female pop performers. She made it much easier for women coming up after her to define, produce and market themselves, and deserves props for that.