Madonna Sheds Light On the Mental Toll of Sexual Assault
by Madeleine Davies
Yesterday, Madonna, while making the rounds to promote her Rebel Heart album, stopped by Sirius XM's Stern Show and got to talking about moving to New York in the late '70s and rape she experienced during her first year there.
"First I was in shock, I didn't know a soul," she told Stern. "I was saying hi to people on the streets like a dork."
After mentioning the several times her apartment was robbed, Madonna detailed one particularly horrifying event:
"I was going to a dance class and the door was locked and I needed money for the payphone. [A man] gave it to me… he was a very friendly guy. I trusted everybody.
The man offered to let her make the call from his apartment and then, as Madonna has detailed in the past, sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.
"I was raped. The first year I lived in New York was crazy."
Asked by Howard Stern and co-host Robin Quivers if she ever attempted to press charges or contact the police about her rapist, Madonna replied no, summing up the realities of a lot of women:
"You've already been violated. It's just not worth it. It's too much humiliation."
Despite her suffering, she's has maintained a sense of humor. Asked if she ever considered going home to Michigan after everything that happened to her, Madge responded with an incredulous "Have you ever been to Rochester, Michigan?"