Madonna has opened up about contemplating suicide years after her tumultuous divorce from Guy Ritchie.
The Queen of Pop appeared on this week’s episode of the On Purpose podcast, during which she spoke about splitting from the filmmaker in 2008 and the dicey custody battle that ensued over the pair’s son Rocco in 2016.
Now 25, the then-16-year-old reportedly opted to relocate to his father’s home in London during his mother’s Rebel Heart Tour.
“There were moments in my life I wanted to cut my arms off … I actually contemplated suicide,” the 67-year-old Grammy winner told host Jay Shetty, who followed up with a question about what events prompted those thoughts.
“I would say 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 [over] my son,” she explained.
“Even though my marriage didn’t work out — I mean, a lot of people’s marriages don’t work out … someone trying to take my child away from me was like, they might as well just kill me,” she said. “That’s really how I was thinking.”
Madonna shared that during the tour, she would often be “lying on the floor of [her] dressing room sobbing.”
The mother of six continued: “I had to go on stage every night … 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 said she’s now “really good friends” with Rocco, who’s a visual artist and painter.
The singer and Ritchie were married from 2000 to 2008. During their union, the couple welcomed Rocco, their biological son, in 2000, and their adopted son, David Banda, in 2008. She’s also mother to Lourdes Leon, with fitness trainer Carlos Leon, and has adopted three daughters as a single parent. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
Those contemplating suicide can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935/014-322 3392); Talian Kasih (15999/019-261 5999 on WhatsApp); Jakim’s family, social and community care centre (011-1959 8214 on WhatsApp); or Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03-7627 2929/email sam@befrienders.org.my/befriender centres in malaysia).
