Dirty Divorce: A-Rod, Madonna, and Lenny Kravitz in public controversy

Get ready for what could be the nastiest celebrity divorce since Paul McCartney's $49 million divorce from Heather Mills.

It's a tangled web that involves the highest paid baseball player in the league, a controversial pop icon, and a rock-and-roll legend.

New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez has been going through a very public separation from his wife recently, and the New York tabloids are loving it.

Rodriguez, also known as A-Rod, ran into trouble last year when the married baseball player was caught at a Toronto strip club with a woman not his wife.

Now A-Rod's wife, Cynthia, has officially left him, even packing up and moving temporarily to Lenny Kravitz's place in Paris with the kids. That caused some to speculate that Kravitz was having an affair with A-Rod's wife, but both parties quickly denied the charges.

"There is absolutely no affair between Cynthia Rodriguez and myself," Kravitz said. "This is unequivocally 100 percent not true," he told the press.

What hasn't died down is the constant rumor mill about 32-year-old Rodriguez and 49-year-old pop icon Madonna, who A-Rod's wife reportedly believes her husband is secretly dating. The headlines, which have dominated the New York tabloid coverage the past few days, say it all.

Wife Says A-Rod's Been Brainwashed, the New York Post blared on Sunday. Yer Out! A-Rod's Wife Dumps Him For Rock Star was the Post's headline last Thursday, July 3. All that culminated with today's banner header: D-Rod: Wife Divorcing Alex - Blames Madonna.

Not to be outdone, the New York Daily News has run its share of A-Rod headlines the past week as well Poor A-Rod: Cynthia's Mom Tells How She Pities Yankees Slugger was the lead headline in the Daily News one day. A-Rod's Tearful Wife Tells Pals...Madonna Broke Up Our Marriage was another headline. And then there was the headline that prompted much of the public attention: Did A-Rod Get To First Base?, a double entendre stuffed in between front page photos of Rodriguez and Madonna.

"The Bombers' $275 million cleanup hitter has been rounding the bases with pop icon Madonna," the Daily News reported last week, adding that the news comes less than three months after the April 21 birth of daughter Ella Alexander where Rodriguez "didn't join his wife in Miami until 10 minutes after she gave birth, and spent only a day with her and their newborn before rejoining the Yankees." 

The latest bit of bad news. Cynthia Rodriguez (aka C-Rod) filed for divorce Monday morning in Miami blaming their failed marriage on A-Rod's "long period of infidelity," the Daily News reported today.

A-Rod did get a bit of good news over the weekend as the Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox on Sunday and Rodriguez hit his 536th career home run to tie Mickey Mantle in 13th place on baseball's all-time list.

But some are wondering if the public divorce proceedings might be distracting to him and the team. This week Rodriguez and the Yankees face The Tampa Bay Rays. But the Rays (with a $43 million payroll) are in an unusual position as they top the American League East and hold a 9-game lead over the New York Yankees (with at $207 million payroll). Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball this season, earning $28 million.