Madonna recently spoke about how her spiritual journey helped her overcome the dark times of her life during a rare interview. The singer made her first podcast appearance on Jay Shetty's On Purpose, which aired on September 29, 2025, where she admitted that she "actually contemplated suicide" at one point due to her struggles.During the podcast, Madonna discussed her study of Kabbalah, a form of esoteric Jewish mysticism, and explained how her spiritual study helped her deal with her struggles. The Material Girl singer also opened up about challenges she faced, candidly admitting that she "wanted to cut [her] arms off" and had suicidal thoughts at one point.“If you don't have a spiritual life, you're suffering all the time... There have been times when I've been really challenged and really suffered, and if I don't have a spiritual life, I don't know how...There were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off. I actually contemplated suicide…that might sound weird coming from me, because I’m not emo…but I was like, I can’t take this pain anymore," she said.She added that her spiritual learnings helped her realize that her struggles were "a lesson and not punishment," saying:"But as soon as you understand what’s 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.”Pop Crave @PopCraveLINKMadonna tells Jay Shetty her inner spiritual life has saved her:“There were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off. I actually contemplated s*icide…that might sound weird coming from me, because I’m not emo…but I was like, I can’t take this pain anymore. But as soon as you understand what’s happening to you is a challenge that you are karmically meant to experience and learn from, then you can look at that event as a lesson and not punishment.”Madonna opened up about the custody battle over her sonMadonna spoke about her custody battle with her former husband, Guy Ritchie, over their son during a recent podcast interview. When host Jay Shetty asked her about the difficult moment of her life that led her to contemplate suicide, the singer replied that the thoughts emerged while she was in a custody battle for her son, calling it "one of the hardest moments of her life."For the uninformed, Madonna and Guy Ritchie were involved in a contentious custody battle for their teenage son Rocco in 2015. According to People Magazine, Rocco (who was 15 at the time) quit travelling with Madonna while she was on her "Rebel Heart Tour" and decided to live with Ritchie in London.Their custody battle was reportedly settled out of court in June 2016. Ritchie's lawyer told Associated Press at the time that Rocco would continue to live with his father in London.During her recent interview, Madonna said that someone trying to take her child away from her left her thinking they might as well kill her. The singer also revealed that she was on tour at the time and would often end up crying in her dressing room, feeling like it was "the end of the world.""Probably one of the most painful moments in my life where I honestly couldn't see the forest through the trees was when I went through a custody battle with my son. And 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," she said.She continued:"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. 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 like it was the end of the world. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't take it." In addition to Rocco, Madonna has five other children, Lourdes, David, Mercy, and twins Stella and Estere.