People who pit pop stars against each other were hoping that Howard Stern would ask Madonna about Lady Gaga. Instead, Stern gave a very insightful interview that brought out Madonna’s vulnerability and brutal honesty. Madonna talked about a horrific event that happened during her first year in New York City.
Madonna said that she was very friendly to everybody she met and trusted people — perhaps a little too much. One day, Madonna was going to a dance class and the door was locked. She needed money for a payphone. There was a man who gave her money and persuaded Madonna to make her phone call across the street. She was then raped.
In the 1993 movie Dangerous Game , Madonna did an improvised scene talking more specifically about what happened to her. It is brutal. But it is also important to note that Madonna survived and became the biggest selling female pop artist of all time.
Madonna told Stern that she was too humiliated to report the incident to the cops. Unfortunately, a lot of other women who have been raped feel the same way. The fact Howard was able to get Madonna to talk about this shows his skill as an interviewer.
Madonna also talked about Michael Jackson. Billboard quotes her statement about the King of Pop .
“I could certainly relate to him on many levels, but he was also a very shy person…He was famous since he was a child and didn’t really have a childhood. He was painfully shy. We didn’t really have a relationship about me revealing myself to him, but making fun of the crazy world we were living and working in. We didn’t talk about our childhoods…. I think he felt eternally tortured. It was hard for him to look into people’s eyes.”
Madonna also talked about dating Tupac Shakur. The New York Daily News quotes Madonna talking about the late rap star on Howard Stern’s show and how he inspired her controversial 1994 interview with David Letterman that lead to a huge Madonna backlash.
“I was in a weird mood that day. I was dating Tupac Shakur at the time and the thing is he got me all riled up on life in general. So when I went on the show I was feeling very gangsta.”
Madonna also revealed that she wrote “Vogue” in a couple of hours and that even though her kids may cringe when they hear her sexually explicit songs, they understand she is an artist and are able to separate it all from Madonna as a mother. Howard Stern’s interview with Madonna was, perhaps, the best interview she has given in the past twenty years. You can hear Madonna’s interview with Howard Stern at Billboard .