Madonna fights private letters and photos release

Aug 3, 2007, 11:20 GMT

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Madonna is battling to stop explicit photographs of her from being released.

The pop superstar - who has instructed her legal team to stop a collection of private love letters and explicit images from being exposed - is said to be worried the assortment of items could harm her chances of permanently adopting her Malawi son David Banda.

Madonna - who is set to be inspected by the head of Malawi's child welfare services to see if she can keep David - sent 17 notes and seven naked photographs of herself to her then-boyfriend James Albright in the early 90s.

The 48-year-old star, who is now married to film director Guy Ritchie, is said to be "devastated" about the items being released at such an important time.

The collection was recently sold to investment company Marquee Capital who are now hoping to make more than £100,000 from auctioning off the items.

Some of the photographs, which were taken by Madonna, feature her naked in a series of sexual poses.

The collection, which is also said to include Madonna's underwear, features handwritten letters on the singer's headed paper.

The steamy notes are signed either 'Spanky' - apparently a reference to her sexual preferences at the time - or 'Lola's Mom' along with a pink lipstick kiss mark.

Madonna began dating her former bodyguard Albright in 1992 and the pair remained close until 1994.

A source at Marquee Capital told Britain's Daily Mail newspaper: "It's not all about sex. Some of the notes and letters talk of her world falling apart, others talks of her feeling really low and down. She calls Albright the best looking guy in the world.

"The letters show us that at the height of her career, she was actually a very insecure woman."

Madonna's lawyers insist selling the collection would be an invasion of the singer's privacy and a breach of her copyright.

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