She has a reputation for taking herself rather seriously.
So it is a breath of fresh air to see Madonna making jokes at her own expense - and with unusually self-deprecating aplomb.
In a video to launch the search for a new 'Macy's Material Girl,' Madonna and daughter Lourdes, aka Lola, discuss irony, fruit, corsets - and those hydrangeas.
The light-hearted mother-daughter banter is loosely pegged around Madonna's anxiety over finding just the right kind of girl for the job.
'I'm worried.. You know when I first started off and people started calling me the material Girl, it was meant to be ironic, right - not to be taken seriously,' says the 53-year-old.
'I'm not sure if people understand irony in this day in age.
'I can't live that name down now,' she goes on. 'People think I'm like, a superficial person, and I'm not. I love horses, I love flowers - well, I don't love hydrangeas.
'I love nature, trees, animals... I don't love all animals.'
A disinterested-looking Lourdes, with typical 15-year-old teenage attitude, feigns taking the job seriously - offering her mother a bite of fruit instead.
'Fruit hurts my stomach. My corset's too tight... I don't eat things I can't identify,' her neurotic-sounding mother replies.
Lola goes on to scoff at her mother's passé choice of language.
'
Madonna's retort? 'I think you're an ageist, okay? I think you're a looksist and an ageist.'
The cross-generational duo are looking for a woman with 'je ne s'ais quoi' to be the figurehead of their Macy's fashion line, which recently turned a year old.