The main reason for controversy came from the way religion and sexuality were mixed in the show that Madonna herself described as a theathrical presentation of her music.

Madonna lying on a red velvet bed with two male dancers (Jose and Luis) on her left and right, wearing long conical bras, sings her classic "Like A Virgin" in a Middle Eastern arrangement while she simulates masturbation, is indeed very theatrical and a quite strong image in itself.

When the climax arrives, the word "God" is heard and it's suddently time for "Like A Prayer" and spirituality.

Votive candles and black robed dancers come on stage for this part of the show.

Some of the problems happened in Toronto, Canada, where the police checked if the show was really obscene as some complaining people were stating.
Madonna refused to alter the show and luckily no charges were made.
The Like a virgin/masturbation scene was the main problem there but the whole second section was the problem in Italy, where a private association of Roman Catholics called Famiglia Domani, (the same one that protested in 1989 for the Like A Prayer video) tried to boycott the show in Rome and Turin in July.

Many times it has been said that the Pope himself called for a boycott of the Blond Ambition, but it wasn't exactly like that.
The boycott was an initiave of "Famiglia Domani" even if the Vatican's newspaper "L'osservatore Romano" agreed that the show was a "complete disgrace".

The Blond Ambition Tour presents a variety of incredible costumes by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier who initially prepared almost fifteen hundred sketches to help Madonna defining the various looks of the show, but Madonna knew exactly what she wanted.

"When I proposed my designs", said Gaultier in an interview, "it was, that no, that yes, no, yes, no". Gaultier who admired Madonna since the early days of her career admitted that working with her on the Blond Ambition Show was definitely one of the highlights of his career.

"I love Madonna. That was one of the best times of my career," he told the Observer.

But the chance to work with her for the first time on this tour came up quite as a surprise, as he recalled in an interview to the New York Times:

"When Madonna first called me in 1989, it was two days before my ready-to-wear show, and I thought my assistant was joking. I was a big fan. She asked me if I would do the tour.

She knew what she wanted: a pinstripe suit, the feminine corsetry. Madonna likes my clothes because they combine the masculine and the feminine."

But how did Gaultier came up with the idea of the gold conical bra?

Surpisingly it has somehow something to do with his grandmother.

"When I was a child, my grandmother took me to an exhibition, and they had a
corset on display. I loved the flesh color, the salmon satin, the lace. She explained that a corset was meant to help you, to make you stand up.

It was a solution that I thought was beautiful. The gold conical bra was just an extension of that idea", explained the designer.

On this page you can find a selection of final sketches by Jean Paul Gaultier of some of the most famous costumes from the Blond Ambition Tour, from Express Yourself and Like a Virgin to Material Girl and Keep it Together.

While staging his retrospective in London at the V&A museum in 2003 he told a local paper that "Madonna is fabulous. She is a fashion freak, un monstre de mode. I remember the first time I saw her on the TV singing Holiday, and I was thinking she was English."

"I couldn't think she was American to dress like that. And when I met her in the flesh I was not disappointed. She is not false. She is like a little girl, truly enjoying, truly spontaneous with her different looks."

On this page you can find a selection of final sketches by Jean Paul Gaultier of some of the most famous costumes from the Blond Ambition Tour, from Express Yourself and Like a Virgin to Material Girl and Keep it Together.

The tv broadcast of the Blond Ambition was again co-produced by Rai, the Italian national network that already worked with Madonna on the previous tour's live broadcast.

One of the shows from Barcelona, Spain, was the one produced by Rai that went live on tv in many parts of Europe.

Another live broadcast from the last date of the tour in Nice, France, was the one produced by the HBO network to be shown in the United States.

The latter became the concert that was released exclusively on Laserdisc by Pioneer Entertainment, the tour's sponsor, that had an exclusive contract with Warner and Madonna for an initial release of the Blond Ambition only on that format, on which Pioneer invested a lot, to help establishing it on the market.

A different show from the beginning of the tour recorded in Yokohama, Japan, became the Pioneer Laserdisc released in that country followed by a limited edition release on VHS.

The Blond Ambition Tour is also the first Madonna's tour that has been featured on the big screen.
"Truth or Dare: On the Road, Behind the Scenes, and In Bed With Madonna": this was the original full lenght title of this engaging behind the scenes look at Madonna's Blond Ambition tour which became Truth or Dare in the Us and In Bed With Madonna in Europe and Japan.