Pop Star Madonna Tells Story Of How She Was Raped At Knifepoint

Singer Madonna covered Harper’s Bazaar, and tells the story of her beginnings in music and the struggles she faced.
“If I can’t be daring in my work or the way I live my life, then I don’t really see the point of being on this planet,” says the performer.
She adds, “Being a rebel and not conforming doesn’t make you very popular. In fact, it does the opposite. You are viewed as a suspicious character. A troublemaker. Someone dangerous.”
Madonna reflects on her high school rebellion, which she describes as doing “the opposite of what all the other girls were doing,” which turned her into a “real man repeller.”
“That didn’t go very well. Most people thought I was strange. I didn’t have many friends; I might not have had any friends,” admits the music icon. “But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren’t popular and you don’t have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future. And for me, that was going to New York to become a REAL artist.”
Not that things got easier in New York.
Madonna says the city “did not welcome me with open arms. 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 was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going,” remembers the singer.
She explains that she is “not a big fan of rules,” even though she’s a “big believer in ritualistic behavior.”