Madonna was raped at knifepoint at age 20, biopic to recount singer's struggling days in New York before fame
The Queen of Pop Madonna's continues to remain incomparable in her field even after decades of delivering chart-topping hits. The singer, however, has a tragic past and had to go through multiple ordeals to reach the top. When Madonna moved to New York City from Michigan at the age of 20 to make her mark in the music industry, she was raped at gunpoint and burgled thrice. "New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms," the singer-songwriter had revealed first in a first-person essay penned for Harper's Bazaar magazine in 2016. "The first year, I was held up at gunpoint. Raped on the roof of a building I was dragged up to with a knife in my back, and had my apartment broken into three times. I don't know why; I had nothing of value after they took my radio the first time."
The 62-year-old also revealed how she struggled to make friends as a teenager because others found her non-conformist attitude "strange." Madonna said that she did the "opposite of what all the other girls were doing," which turned her into a "man repeller." The singer-songwriter said that she had to go through hardship to make ends meet initially in her career as she paid her rent by posing nude for art classes. She wrote that she found herself "staring at people staring at me naked. Daring them to think of me as anything but a form they were trying to capture with their pens and charcoal." However, the musician added that despite feeling "scared s***less" by some parts of the city, she remained "defiant" and "hell-bent on surviving."
Madonna, in the same essay, had also talked about her relationship with British director Guy Richie. She divorced him in 2008. During their relationship, Madonna moved to England to live with Richie, however, the shift left her feeling alienated. "It wasn't easy for me. Just because we speak the same language doesn't mean we speak the same language," she wrote in the magazine. "I didn't understand that there was still a class system. I didn't understand pub culture. I didn't understand that being openly ambitious was frowned upon."
Recent reports state that the pop star's upcoming biopic, directed by her, will recount the horrifying moment she was raped.The film will reportedly explore some of the darker aspects of her life before she gained fame.
"She lost her mother to cancer when she was just five, something a child never gets over. But she turned her loss and pain into a creative force to be reckoned with," a source told The Mirror. "There will be some shockers, as that is just part of her DNA. This has been an incredibly cathartic process for Madonna. She is uncovering memories that have long been left dormant. She has done and achieved so much, so to have this time to reflect has been quite magical," the source added. Reports state that writing her biopic has been a cathartic experience for the singer, who recently told her fans: "I keep forgetting that I'm writing about myself... I can't make s*** up! But in fact I don't need to. The truth will set you free and also be devastating!"
