MADONNA SPEAKS OUT

Madonna is setting the record straight about issues of motherhood and matrimony in the new US Weekly. The Golden Globe-winning pop diva insists she has no immediate plans to wed beau Guy Ritchie — despite the diamond ring he gave her on her on Aug. 16 (her 42nd birthday and the day their son, Rocco, arrived home from the hospital.) "I wouldn't say it's an engagement ring — at least not right now," she tells the mag. "We talk about marriage but we can't decide whether it's something that's necessary." And what about reports that little Rocco, born a month premature, was at one point near-death? "It wasn't as dramatic as everyone portrays it," she says. "But because he was a month premature they put him in intensive care to make sure his lungs were developed enough."