Sean Penn denies abusing his ex Madonna: “She is someone I love”

Sean Penn denies ever having beaten his ex-wife Madonna with a baseball bat during their four-year marriage.

“A damn SWAT team came into my house,” Penn said The New York Times in an interview published on Saturday, June 22, adding that Madonna told police she was concerned about guns in the house. “I said, ‘I’m not coming out. I’m going to finish my breakfast.’ The next thing I remember is windows being smashed all over the house and they were coming in.”

He added: “They had handcuffed me.”

Despite their turbulent marriage and subsequent divorce, Penn still has a soft spot for his first wife. “She is someone I love,” he said NYT. “It turns out that it is much quicker to restore a friendship after a divorce when there are no children involved. It took (ex-wife Robin Wright) and I for quite a while. There was a lot of drama. It’s much more important to fix it when kids are involved, but it’s not a walk in the park, is it?”

Related: Sean Penn’s controversies through the years: Legal issues and more

Sean Penn is no stranger to drama, both on screen and in his private life. In addition to his career as an Oscar-winning actor and his relationships with A-list celebrities such as Madonna, Robin Wright and Charlize Theron, Penn has also made headlines over the years for controversial behavior and comments. Keep scrolling to take a look back at Penn’s (…).

Penn, 63, and Madonna, 65, were married from 1985 to 1989, although the “Like a Virgin” singer first filed for divorce from Penn in 1987, but withdrew it before filing again two years later. Both times Madonna filed for divorce, reports circulated that Penn not only physically assaulted the pop star, including hitting her with a baseball bat, but also tied her to a chair for hours.

However, Madonna denies that there was ever any physical violence in her marriage to Penn.

“Although we certainly had more than one heated argument during our marriage, Sean never hit, ‘tied up’ or physically assaulted me, and any report to the contrary is completely outrageous, malicious, reckless and false,” she wrote in a 2015 statement while testifying on Sean’s behalf in a defamation lawsuit against Penn. Lee Daniels.

The actor had filed a $10 million lawsuit against Daniels after the Empire creator referred to Penn during a conversation about domestic violence in Hollywood. (Daniels defended Rich star Robert F.who admitted to beating his first wife Lori McCommas in an interview in 2015 with Rolling Stone.) The lawsuit was settled in 2016.

“Not only did we win the case, but Daniels also wrote a public letter and he had to contribute to CORE,” Penn told NYT(CORE stands for Community Organized Relief Effort and was co-founded by Penn and Ann Lee (in 2010.)

Penn has three ex-wives and is finalizing his divorce from Leila Goerge in April 2022, confirmed by We weekly. Regarding his romantic future, Penn said The New York Times that he is “excited every day” that he is no longer in a committed relationship.

“I’m just free,” he said. “When I get into a relationship, I’m either still free, or I don’t get into one and it doesn’t hurt me. I don’t feel like a romance is going to break my heart again.”