Madonna reveals she was raped at knifepoint while young in N.Y.

1/10

This list is long, so brace yourself. According to media reports, Madonna married and divorced Sean Penn, dated Warren Beatty, hooked up with porn star Tony Ward, hung out with Vanilla Ice, got hot for her bodyguard, got heavy with Dennis Rodman, and fell for her personal trainer. With that trainer, Madonna gave birth to a baby girl in 1996.

And then there was Guy. Madonna and Guy Ritchie met in 1998; in 2000, they married and had a son together, but after years of bliss, the couple split in 2008. (Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images)

2/10

Both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera had been actively working to break away from their squeaky-clean, Mickey Mouse Club personae, and Madonna was just the person to help. In August 2003, Madonna turned heads, raised eyebrows and got those tongues wagging yet again when she locked lips during a performance with both pop stars onstage at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. (Scott Gries / Getty Images)

3/10

In April 2008, the Material Girl released “Hard Candy,” her 11th studio album, which featured Pharrell Williams, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. She subsequently launched the international Sticky & Sweet tour to promote it. She earned the right to strike a pose and vogue after bringing in $120.1 million total in 2008 from North American touring ($105.3 million) and music sales ($14.8 million), but the numbers were still low by industry standards.

The singer’s best preparation for the demands of directing a movie may have been her ambitious, visually driven live shows. “When you’re putting a show together, you’re dealing with so many elements,” she said. “You’re creating a stage and working with lights and costumes and dancers who you could say are the actors. You’re paying attention to the minutiae and you’re also stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. I always like to tell stories in my show and have some kind of an arc. I have a crew that I rely on desperately and ... I’m working with creative people, so I need to be judicious with the way that I speak with them. I’ve always been intricately involved in every aspect of my show. I know where all the nails are on the stage.” (Ettore Ferrari / EPA)

4/10

In 2010, Madonna and her daughter, Lourdes “Lola” Ciccone Leon, teamed up with Macy’s to launch Material Girl, a 1980s-inspired clothing line for young women that would be available in 200 Macy’s stores.

“Sometimes [Lourdes] will do certain things or say certain things and I’ll feel like I’m looking in a mirror,” Madonna said. “I’ll get really irritated with her and then I’ll stop and think, ‘But that’s what I used to do.’ Or ‘That’s what I do.’ If I complain to my friends and say, ‘Oh, she’s so strong willed or she’s so opinionated,’ they look at me and go, ‘Well, what did you expect?’ ”

Former “Gossip Girl” actress-turned-punk-rocker Taylor Momsen first fronted the line but was later replaced by Kelly Osbourne. But the sartorial collection came under fire when a Los Angeles apparel manufacturer sued the pop star, claiming they had been selling their merchandise under the same brand name since 1997. (Evan Agostini / Associated Press)

5/10

Since her split with Guy Ritchie, the Material Girl has been seen cozying up up with her latest boy toy, Brahim Zaibat. (Arnaldo Magnani / Getty Images)

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Madonna‘s song “Masterpiece” from her romantic drama “W.E.” was named best original song at the 2012 Golden Globes. But the song is not eligible for the equivalent prize at the Academy Awards ceremony, however -- evidently it was placed too far into the movie’s end credits to qualify for an Oscar. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

7/10

The 2012 MDNA tour could shape up to be one of the 10 biggest tours of all time, with 89 shows in 28 countries, including stops in 18 cities where Madonna had never performed before. The show features about 700 wardrobe pieces for all the performers onstage and seven songs from the “MDNA” album are on the set list.
MORE: Madonna’s MDNA tour by the numbers (Jeff Fusco / Getty Images)

8/10

Madonna took home the top touring award for MDNA at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 19, 2013. The tour was crowned 2012’s top-grossing concert attraction worldwide by Billboard, surpassing other highly popular road shows by Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Coldplay and Lady Gaga. The tour grossed $228.4 million over the course of 72 shows (all sold out), according to the magazine’s calculations, which are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore from Nov. 9, 2011, to Nov. 13, 2012. Forbes later calculated that the tour grossed than $305 million. (Jason Merritt / Getty Images)

9/10

Madonna arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala benefit in honor of the museum’s 2013 exhibit, “Punk: Chaos to Couture” on May 6, 2013, in New York. It’s fair to say that her ensemble showed that she was in her element. Times Fashion critic Booth Moore noted that her look was “tarty,” and “hinted at the DIY, bondage aspect of punk, though it might have been more fun if she’d just broken out one of her old ‘Like a Virgin’ ensembles to remind us that she really was a punk in her own way.”

Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon-Talley said she “turned up around 8:30 p.m. dressed as a Louise Brooks-sleek brunette-bobbed punk diva, resplendent with marvelous studs, and a short Givenchy Haute Couture jacket that topped off her stockinged legs and fuchsia heels.” (Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images)

10/10

At age 55, the Material Girl was named 2013’s top-earning celebrity unseating 2012’s top earner, Oprah Winfrey, according to Forbes magazine. She earned an estimated $125 million between June 2012 and June 2013, the mag said, despite poor sales for her “MDNA” album. But the album’s corresponding tour, which happened to coincide with her powerhouse halftime-show performance at the 2012 Super Bowl, bolstered her earnings big time. Merchandise sales, her Material Girl clothing line, fragrances and investments helped her forge her way to the top of the list. In 2009, the mag estimated she earned $110 million, which is the closest she ever came to this year’s high.

In this photo, Madonna waves in central Rome after visiting her Hard Candy Fitness center, a global chain of gyms opening around the world, on August 21, 2013. (Tiziana Fabi / AFP / Getty Images)

By Christie D’Zurilla

Oct. 4, 2013 4:03 PM PT

Madonna dares to reveal one very personal truth in an essay for “The Daring Issue” of Harper’s Bazaar: When she was young and trying to make it in New York City, she was raped at knifepoint.

The pop diva tosses off the information almost as an aside, as if it’s something she has compartmentalized over time.

“New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be,” she writes. “It 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 don’t know why; I had nothing of value after they took my radio the first time.”

The essay itself is a rundown of key “daring” decisions in Madonna’s life, as presented by Madonna.

Among them: moving to New York from Michigan, moving to a foreign country, adopting children internationally, studying Kabbalah and deciding as a teen not to shave her legs or under her arms (she changed her mind on that last one, eventually).

Madonna says that after all of her outlandish behavior onstage, she didn’t expect to be “punished” by the public for adopting abroad, but took a big lesson from the whole experience.

“One of the many things I learned from all of this: If you aren’t willing to fight for what you believe in, then don’t even enter the ring.”

Now, she says, being daring is her norm.

“I have been blessed with four amazing children. I try to teach them to think outside the box. To be daring. To choose to do things because they are the right thing to do, not because everybody else is doing them,” she writes. “I have started making films, which is probably the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done. I am building schools for girls in Islamic countries and studying the Qur’an. I think it is important to study all the holy books. As my friend Yaman always tells me, a good Muslim is a good Jew, and a good Jew is a good Christian, and so forth. I couldn’t agree more.

“To some people this is a very daring thought.”

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Madonna reveals she was raped at knifepoint while young in N.Y.

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