--- description: Her 15-year-old son is in London with ex-husband Guy Ritchie title: Madonna Goes to Court to Force Son to Come Home for the Holidays image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Madonna Goes to Court to Force Son to Come Home for the Holidays by [Daniel White](/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 24, 2015 12:03 AM CUT by [Daniel White](/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 24, 2015 12:03 AM CUT Madonna [wants her son to come home for the holidays](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2015/12/23/madonna-goes-court-force-teen-son-return-uk/77838532/ "undefined")–so much so that the pop star went to court Wednesday to see that he returns. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Deborah Kaplan ordered 15-year-old Rocco Ritchie to return to New York from his home in London. Rocco will be granted a court-appointed lawyer in the matter and must return, even if doesn’t wish to come home. The New York _Daily News_ reports that [the hearing may hint at some tension](http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/madonna-feuds-guy-ritchie-custody-son-article-1.2474807 "undefined") between Madonna and her ex-husband British filmmaker Guy Ritchie over custody of Rocco. The two divorced in 2008. Ritchie’s lawyer, Eric Buckley, told Kaplan that Rocco has “expressed very clearly that he does not want to return to New York.” When asked by the judge if Ritchie had prevented the child from returning to the United States, Buckley replied “Effectively yes.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/"},"headline":"Madonna Goes to Court to Force Son to Come Home for the Holidays","datePublished":"2015-12-24T00:03:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:37:31.186Z","description":"Her 15-year-old son is in London with ex-husband Guy Ritchie","url":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/","keywords":["christmas","Madonna","Holidays","court"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel White","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-white/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/","name":"Madonna Goes to Court to Force Son to Come Home for the Holidays"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Madonna: I Found Out Through Instagram That I'd Been Hacked","description":"In a new interview, the queen of pop says her millions of Instagram followers lent her a hand — by letting her know that her music had leaked online","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/OvyRraBZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-02-26T12:44:08.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/OvyRraBZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/","duration":"PT1M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4160783/madonna-son-home-holidays/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```