Madonna is recalling a dark time in her life while navigating a custody battle with Guy Ritchie.
“There were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off. I actually contemplated suicide,” Madonna, 67, shared on the Monday, September 29, episode of the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast. “That probably sounds really weird coming from me because I’m not that emo, you know what I mean? But I was like, ‘I can’t take this pain anymore.’”
She continued, “But as soon as you understand that what is happening to you is a challenge that you are karmically meant to experience and learn from and evolve to a higher level of consciousness, then you can look at that event, that experience, as a lesson and not punishment.”
When asked what might have stirred her suicidal thoughts, Madonna shared, “I’m not in the blame game. I used to be that way.” Madonna admitted that she wanted to “seek revenge” or would “pronounce loudly” that someone would get karma.
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“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 said. “Even though my marriage didn’t work out — I mean, a lot of people’s marriages don’t work out, they marry the wrong people, they’re not aligned, they’re not meant for each other — [but] 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.”
She continued, “I was on tour at the time. So I had to go on stage every night. I would just be lying on the floor of my dressing room sobbing. I really thought it was the end of the world. I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t take it. But thank God I don’t feel that way anymore.”
Madonna and Ritchie, now 57, welcomed son Rocco in 2000 before tying the knot later that year. The couple went on to adopt son David Banda after going on a humanitarian trip to Malawi in 2006. Madonna and Ritchie had to wait two years for the Malawi High Court to approve the adoption, meaning David Banda was 3 when the pair officially became his parents.
In 2008, Madonna and Ritchie split and cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for calling it quits. After the duo’s divorce was settled later that year, Madonna adopted Mercy — who was also born in Malawi — in 2009. (Madonna is also mom to daughter Lourdes Leon, whom she welcomed in 1996 with then-partner Carlos Leon, and twin daughters Stella and Estere, whom she adopted in 2017.)
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While discussing her biggest hurdles in life, Madonna recalled suffering from a “bacterial infection” in 2023 while rehearsing for a tour.
“One minute I was alive and dancing around and the next minute I was in the ICU unit of a hospital and I woke up from being unconscious for four days,” Madonna said. “I got out of the hospital, they took me off of the ventilator. I started to breathe on my own, and I had something, it’s called sepsis, and it can kill you.”
Mayo Clinic defines sepsis as a serious condition where the body cannot properly respond to an infection, leading the organs to work poorly.
“Everybody recovers at a different rate. I’ve always seen myself as superwoman,” she said. “So, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to kick this. I’m going to be good. I’m getting back into rehearsals.’ I had no strength. I had no energy. I couldn’t get out of bed and I didn’t know when it was going to end.”
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Madonna explained that her teacher’s message of “radical acceptance” helped her move forward as she healed.
“I used to talk to my teacher all the time and he was like, ‘The sooner you accept what’s happening to you and that you don’t know when it’s going to end, the sooner it’s going to end,’” she said. “That made so much sense to me. And of course it did.”
She continued, “But, I mean, I’ve heard some people never recover from it completely, never recover and have their, like, full of health again. So again, it’s the same idea, same concept. If you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, ‘Oh, woe is me or poor me. I don’t accept it, I will not accept it,’ well, then you’re just going to be swimming in suffering.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
