While OK! and Us Weekly insist Madonna and Yankees star Alex Rodriguez are having themselves a little extramarital affair — hey, she did write a song called "I Love New York" … a secret love letter perhaps? — People shoots back with the official response from Madge's longtime rep Liz Rosenberg, who tries to put the kabash on all this nonsense.

"It's nothing new that people are airing tons of dirty laundry Madonna's way lately – much of it untrue," says Liz, who adds that Guy Ritchie just arrived in the U.S. not as a last ditch effort to save his marriage, as some aggressive headline writers might suggest, but to be with his wife and kids.

Except it's also quite plausible, inside the gossip industry where even the Today show is playing, to assume Ritchie came to the States just to give the appearance of normalcy, and quell reports that both he and Madonna have consulted with divorce attorneys.

For its part, Us is standing by its sources, who seem to be phoning in A-Rod reports from the front desk of her Manhattan apartment building. The tabloid's latest report? That the baseball player visited Madge the night after his wife gave birth to their second daughter.

But as hard as Rosenberg works to play this story off as a non-issue, which she's been doing for more than a year, speculation about the end of Madonna's marriage isn't going anywhere. And here's why:

1) Madonna is not the type of celebrity who is going to cave to media pressure to make a formal announcement. She will do it on her own time, in her own way, and only when she's ready. That said …

2) It's no longer mere speculation that there are major problems in Madonna and Guy's marriage. When the reports first started surfacing out of London and elsewhere, it's feasible that competing gossip rags just piggybacked on each other's stories to file their own reports and not be left out of the game. But now it's clear most gossip players in the biz, in the U.S. and U.K., have their own roster of sources on the Madonna beat. This means, collectively, the tabloids aren't going to abandon the issue any time soon, since for every statement publicist Rosenberg issues to say all is alright in their love life, the tabloid press has a dozen sources saying otherwise. That Madonna and Guy are on the outs is basically accepted as fact, and where there's trouble brewing, there are outlandish headlines.

3) Madonna has her international Sticky & Sweet tour to promote, her fourth with Live Nation but her first since signing a "360" all-encompassing deal with the music events company. Not that this type of controversy will really keep fans from buying tickets — many of her dates sold out within minutes or hours — but a divorce is not the type of thing Madonna wants hanging over the ensuing press bonanza that her SEMTEX Girls, a talented group of three publicists-assistants who handle a huge chunk of her promotions, are orchestrating. Which means that if a divorce is inevitable, it's not going to happen (or at least be announced) until after the tour is over. And her tour only begins August 28, in Cardiff, England, and wraps November 26, in Miami. That's the day before Thanksgiving, which means she could leak the news over the holiday weekend, or wait until Christmas when everyone's too busy with their new 4G iPhones to care.

Update: 4) We're hearing rumors her tour will be filmed for a HBO special. More reason not to attract more negative press.