Pop icon Madonna revealed she contemplated suicide during a brutal custody battle with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie over their then-teenage son.
Giving her first interview in nine years for the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, Madonna described moments in her life when she wanted to “cut my arms off,” before discussing one particularly tumultuous time in more detail.
“Probably one of the most painful moments in my life, where I honestly couldn’t see the forest for the trees, was when I went through a custody battle with my son [Rocco],” she said.
“Someone trying to take my child away from me was like, they might as well just kill me. That’s really how I was thinking. And I was on tour at the time, so I had to go on stage every night, and I would just be lying on the floor of my dressing room sobbing,” she added. “I really thought it was like it was the end of the world. I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t take it.”
Madonna and Ritchie, the British filmmaker behind Snatch, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the 2019 Aladdin remake, had their son in August 2000, married a few months later, and divorced in 2008.
During the divorce proceedings, Rocco is said to have moved into Ritchie’s London home at age 16 while Madonna was on her Rebel Heart Tour, prompting an ugly custody battle. The couple eventually agreed to share contact with Rocco and his younger brother, David, as part of the divorce settlement.
Speaking to Jay Shetty in a conversation lasting more than two hours, the mother-of-six said she no longer feels suicidal and now has a good relationship with Rocco.
The Queen of Pop added that the traumatic experience and the subsequent “spiritual path” she embarked on forced her to understand that sometimes the “enemy is within.”
“I needed to learn some lessons, and I can see that with the benefit of hindsight, but I couldn’t see it at the time,” she said.
“I was abandoned as a child by my own mother, and so losing a child like it was, like life repeating itself, I couldn’t accept it, and so it caused me a lot of suffering. And not being able to accept things causes all of us a lot of suffering,” she added. “I’m happy to say that I’m really good friends with my son, but I couldn’t see it then. I really thought it was the end of the world. So, thank God I had a spiritual life.”
Madonna is the mother to six children; Lordes, 28, Rocco, 25, David, 20, Mercy, 19, and twins Stella and Estere, 13.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.
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