Madonna Injured in Bridgehampton

By Dan Rattiner

Posted 04/20/2009

Pop star Madonna was out jumping fences on a horse at the home of celebrity photographer Steven Klein in Bridgehampton last Saturday morning when paparazzi photographers leaped out of from behind some bushes and using flash photography to take pictures of her, spooked her horse, which threw her.

Fortunately, she was wearing a helmet at the time, as she otherwise might have been seriously injured, but with her horse running off, she was injured nevertheless, and she subsequently had to be taken to Southampton Hospital, where she underwent tests and observation.

Upon leaving the hospital, rather than returning to Steven Klein's house, she went to the home of Gwyneth Paltrow in Amagansett to get some bed rest for a few days.

The moral of the story is that if you are a celebrity and your picture is worth thousands to paparazzi, it is not a good idea to ride a horse at the home of a celebrity photographer if the only fences on the property are the kind you jump over rather than the kind that surround.

This is the second time that Madonna has had to be hospitalized after being thrown from a horse. In August of 2005, she suffered a broken collarbone, broken hand and three cracked ribs when she was thrown while riding on her Ashcombe House estate in Dorset, England. After that, she gave up riding for several months, but famously got back up on a horse on 53rd Street in Manhattan in October of that year to ride with TV host David Letterman for his show.