Madonna went topless during a photoshoot for the latest issue of Interview magazine, and also detailed her history with drugs – saying she's tried them all, but warning they will kill you in the end.
"They give you the illusion of getting closer to God, but ultimately they kill you,"
she told magician and interviewer David Blaine about her escapades in mind-altering substances.
"They destroy you. I mean, I tried everything once, but as soon as I was high, I spent my time drinking tons of water to get it out of my system. As soon as I was high, I was obsessed with flushing it out of me. I was like, 'Okay, I'm done now.'"
Other highlights of the interview included the mother of 56-year-old Madonna, who died when she was 5 years old.
"Would you say that your mother is part of the driving force behind you, a little bit?" asked Blaine.
"Well, that's another question. I'm sure that, to a certain extent, she is, but actually, her lack of presence would be the driving force," Madge responded.
"I became very obsessed with death, and the idea that you never know when death will arrive, so one has to do as much as possible all the time to get the most out of life. That would be a motivating force. And death was a big part of my life growing up. I went to lots of funerals."
Blaine also probed into Madonna's salad days in New York, when she spent a lot of time with other artists.
By name she mentions Martin Burgoyne, Keith Haring, and Basquiat. "Sometimes Warhol would join us, but Warhol didn't talk that much," she said.
"You knew what was great before everybody else knew what was great," comments Blaine.
"I was attracted to creative people. You don't want to be the smartest person in the room; you want to be the dumbest in the room," she explained.
"You want to be surrounded by other thinking people who are going to say something that makes you think, 'Oh, my God, that's an amazing idea. Why didn't I think of that.' And somehow we found each other in Manhattan. That's the crazy thing. We found each other and we connected to each other and we moved around the city together. They supported my shows. I supported their shows. We were a unit. And I don't even know how it happened. It just did."
Billboard.com reported that Madonna this month became the world's wealthiest recording artist with a net worth of $800 million, besting Paul McCartney and Dr. Dre.
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