Madonna is doing the promotional rounds for her new album "Hard Candy" and she landed the cover of the next Vanity Fair issue - where she once again puts her well-trained physique on display while talking about such issues as her own childhood and...well, Britney Spears. The fact is, Madonna hasn't talked about her former protegee in a while now, mostly because she hasn't been very supportive of Britney while her once-close friend was going through her darkest hour just a few short weeks ago. However, this hasn't stopped the queen of pop from mentioning Britney, from defending Britney and talking about how cruelly the media has been treating the younger popwreck - not to mention comparing Brit's media coverage to African witchcraft.

Whether it was a calculated decision or not (and it can't possibly have been a spontaneous remark from a woman who made controversy her middle name), Madonna managed to stir the pot yet again and cause people to react to her statements with more than a little frustration. "When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa," she said "about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they're in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that's a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who's worse off?" she asked.

Of course, Madonna should know quite a little about Britney, given that they were once closely linked and that they both profited from each other's popularity. They even went as far as to tongue one another on TV, in full view of an entire nation - as we all know, of course, and it was widely rumored that Madonna was indoctrinating the much younger Brit Brit into her religion, the Kabbalah. Their high-profile friendship helped both the singers' careers, with the difference that Madonna's experience helped her steer clear of the trouble Britney managed to get herself in. Many voices out there claim that Madonna exploited Britney and even contributed to her downfall, so her Vanity Fair interview - with its slight "jump on the Brit bandwagon" air - is not likely to enjoy too much popularity. But this is Madonna we're talking about, she'll just ignore it all and kiss Britney again when she has the chance.