New York, July 1 (Reuters): US pop star Madonna and her husband, British film maker Guy Ritchie, are not planning to divorce, her spokeswoman said today, denying media speculation that their marriage is ending.

“There are no divorce plans,” Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's publicist, said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

Rumours that the London-based couple planned to split have been circulating for months, fuelled most recently by reports that the singer had lined up Fiona Shackleton, a lawyer for Paul McCartney in his bitter divorce from Heather Mills.

The speculation reached a fever pitch last week in London, where the Daily Mirror newspaper dedicated two front pages to the plight of the couple’s marriage.

Madonna, 49, and Ritchie, 39, married in December 2000 at Skibo Castle in northeast Scotland.