Madonna and Dennis Rodman Photographed by Melodie McDaniel for Vibe Magazine, 1994

Here’s Madonna and Dennis Rodman on the cover of Vibe magazine for the June/July 1994 issue which was never published, as founder Quincy Jones decided he did not want a caucasian female on the cover of his “urban” magazine at the time.

After the photo shoot, she conducted a 2-hour interview and they hooked up for the first time that day. As Madonna owns the rights to many of her photo shoots since around 1984, a couple of photos from the shoot of Madonna solo later appeared in the official 1995 calendar.

In “The Autobiography of Quincy Jones” (2001), he recalled:

“On an early issue we had a real problem with a cover that had featured the Beastie Boys, whose most recent album had been delayed, and then didn’t perform up to expectations commercially. We were only beginning to find out then how vital covers are to magazines’ success. The next one, which Jon Van Meter had already shot, featured Madonna and Dennis Rodman. I said, ‘Over my dead body, because it makes it look as though we’re pandering, that we’re not sure Vibe can be a black magazine and make it.’ We’d misfired on the Beasties, so I was adamant, though technically Van Meter did not report to me and I had backed off on editorial matters after my initial involvement. It wasn’t about Madonna or Dennis: it was about our not having been around long enough to establish a personality as an urban magazine. Van Meter was furious: he was gone after that...

“When I called Madonna as a friend to explain that it wasn’t at all personal, she took it personal and got an attitude about it. She said, ‘Quincy, you and I could change the world together if we wanted to. See you around, pal.’ Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve spoken since. Her publicist Liz Rosenberg then called Liz Smith, and before you knew it there was an item in Liz’s column reporting that ‘Quincy killed the cover because it showed a mixed couple.’ Right. Me, of all people—pleeze!”

In Rodman’s memoir, “Bad As I Wanna Be” (1996), he talked about the photo shoot:

“In April, one of her people called and asked me to come to Miami because Madonna was going to interview me for Vibe, the hip-hop magazine. They told me the magazine had assigned her to do an interview of me, and it was supposed to be the cover story—with photos and the interview—for the June 1994 issue...

“I didn’t like her work at all. I didn’t like her music. I told her that too. I thought she was a brilliant entertainer, but her music wasn’t my style. She changed with the album called Bedtime Stories. It was pretty cool, but a lot of people didn’t accept it.  After we went through the introductions at her house, she did the interview. She sat there and took notes and everything. She had questions ready, all written down. After we did some of the interview, they started doing the photo shoot and We were gust all over each other. From the first photo we were covering each other. I didn’t care if it was Madonna or not, to me it was just another girl and we were on each other. They ended the photo shoot before we got too carried away. We ended up going out to the gay bar—that was an experience…. 

“Eventually we went back to her house. I got in the house and headed for the spare bedroom. I was all set to just go in there and crash, but Bryne was already asleep in there.  Before I could ask where I should go, Madonna looked at me all sexy and said, “YOU’RE STAYING WITH ME, IN MY ROOM.” There was no doubt that she wasn’t going to let me go in the other room, whether Bryne was in there or not. Then she shut the door and told her manager, “He’ll be with me.” So I laid my head where all the other mongrels had. First thing you know—boom!—we’re messing around. We sort of picked up where we left off during the photo shoot, except this time there was nobody watching...

“As it turned out, the Vibe magazine story was real, but it never appeared in the magazine. I found out later they didn’t like the way it turned out, so they scrapped it.”