Madonna argued with ex-husband Sean Penn, but he never physically abused her, she says

Madonna is stepping up to the plate for Sean Penn, reportedly filing a court declaration saying that although she and her ex-husband definitely argued during their marriage, he never physically abused her.

“Sean has never struck me, ‘tied me up,’ or physically assaulted me, and any report to the contrary is completely outrageous, malicious, reckless, and false,” the pop star says in the filing, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

In the statement, Madonna specifically references old tabloid reports that Penn at one point tied her up and struck her with a baseball bat. “I know the allegations in those and other reports to be completely outrageous, malicious, reckless, and false,” she says.

The declaration comes in an amended filing of Penn’s defamation lawsuit against “Empire” co-creator Lee Daniels, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which published the interview containing the Daniels quote that sparked the $10-million lawsuit.

In dismissing allegations of domestic abuse that had been made against his “Empire” lead actor Terrence Howard, Daniels told the publication, “[Terrence] ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some ... demon. That’s a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America.”

Howard has admitted striking at least one woman, his first wife. That admission came in a Rolling Stone interview that was published two days before the Daniels interview.

Penn brought the lawsuit, obtained by the Reporter, less than a week after the quote was published online. Two weeks ago, Daniels’ legal team sought to have the case thrown out on 1st Amendment grounds.

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