With uncharacteristic understatement, Madonna tells fans awaiting her movie biopic: My life has been a rollercoaster.
The Queen of Pop invites them to prepare for an “incredible journey”.
We might – no, make that we will – need to fasten our seatbelts.
The highs are plenty. An amazing 40 years of chart-topping, tour-smashing, movie-making pushing of boundaries.
The lows are memorable, too, often for the darkest of reasons.
And we can reveal how the superstar will recount deeply personal and painful experiences – including the harrowing moment she was raped at knifepoint at the age of 20.
Madge, now 62, is also set to expose the ruthless, male-dominated music industry.
And the movie will reveal how, aged just five, she dealt with the death of her mother.
One friend said looking back on her life has seen the singer purge some demons.
The friend said: “Madonna has had one hell of a career. She has had a lot of highs, but she has also had a lot of crippling lows.
“She lost her mother to cancer when she was just five, something a child never gets over. But she turned her loss and pain into a creative force to be reckoned with.
“There will be some shockers, as that is just part of her DNA. This has been an incredibly cathartic process for Madonna.
“She is uncovering memories that have long been left dormant. She has done and achieved so much, so to have this time to reflect has been quite magical.”
For a month, Madonna has been trawling over cornerstone moments of her early life.
She told her fans: “I keep forgetting that I’m writing about myself… I can’t make s*** up! But in fact I don’t need to. The truth will set you free and also be devastating!”
Survival will be a key theme. Madonna previously revealed she was raped after moving to New York from Michigan.
In an essay penned for Harper’s Bazaar, she said: “New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms. The first year, I was held up at gunpoint.
“Raped on the roof of a building I was dragged up to with a knife in my back, and had my apartment broken into three times. I don’t know why; I had nothing of value after they took my radio the first time.”
Despite feeling “scared sh**less” by some parts of the city, she remained “hellbent on surviving”. The film is expected to explore why Madonna did not report the rape.
She previously explained: “I was told that if I wanted to press charges, that, you know, a physical examination, I would have to go before the court, they are going to ask you all these personal questions. You’ve already been violated, so then, do you want to talk about it? Do you want to make it public? No, it’s just not worth it. It’s too humiliating.”
Last week Madonna said she will co-write and direct the as-yet-untitled biopic with Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody and Universal producer Amy Pascal.
Madge put out teasing pictures on Instagram and Twitter of her and Cody during writing sessions.
She told fans: “I want to convey the incredible journey that life has taken me on as an artist, a musician, a dancer – a human being, trying to make her way in this world.
“The focus of this film will always be music. Music has kept me going and art has kept me alive. There are so many untold and inspiring stories and who better to tell it than me.
“It’s essential to share the rollercoaster ride of my life with my voice and vision.”
She has been listening to early unknown records – as well as poring over past controversies. And there’s quite a list to cover.
Topped, perhaps, in 1992 by the release of Sex, her iconic coffee table book where she appeared naked throughout.
Madge said: “Looking back it’s hard to believe that this book caused so much controversy. And have we moved forward? Is the patriarchal world we live in ready to accept women expressing their sexuality?”
There was also her 1989 video for Like a Prayer, filled with imagery of a woman being murdered by white supremacists, burning crosses and Madonna kissing a Black saint.
Religious groups were unhappy and Pepsi dropped Madonna from their ads. Justify My Love took things to another level in 1990 with a video featuring a bisexual orgy.
MTV banned her, but the song stayed at the top of the charts for two weeks.
There was also the time, in 1994, when chat host David Letterman asked about her sex life and Madonna responded by calling him a “sick f***” before launching into a 20-minute rant and telling him to smell her underwear.
Madonna’s love life has been a rollercoaster too, as the movie will show. Her loves included artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died aged 27 of a heroin overdose, and her personal trainer tuned actor Carlos Leon, 54 – father of Madonna’s daughter Lourdes, 23.
Actor Sean Penn, 60, was Madonna’s first husband and admitted in 2015, 30 years after their split, that he still loved her.
Her second husband was Brit film director Guy Ritchie, 52 – but it ended bitterly amid a custody battle over son Rocco, now 20.
Madge also had romances with actor Warren Beatty – her co-star in Dick Tracy – singer Lenny Kravitz and murdered rapper Tupac.
The singer, whose throng of six kids includes four African orphans, has sold 335milion records worldwide and topped the UK charts 13 times.
She is worth an estimated £439million. Film insiders believe her biopic could top the £697million box office takings of Bohemian Rhapsody, about Queen singer Freddie Mercury, and the £150million made by Rocketman, the life story of Sir Elton John.
The movie will also touch on Madonna’s rebellious teenage years – when she did “the opposite of what all the other girls were doing”. She posed as a nude art model to pay the rent as she pursued a career on dance – then lived in an abandoned synagogue in Corona, Queens, with musician boyfriend Dan Gilroy.
They formed her first band, called the Breakfast Club.
Madonna then went solo, signed with Sire Records and later Warner Brothers.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
A long line of hits boasts the likes of Like a Virgin, Papa Don’t Preach, Who’s That Girl and True Blue – while her movies include Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, Desperately Seeking Susan and Evita. The biopic comes three years after a separate project on Madonna’s early career earned the singer’s wrath. Blond Ambition, an unproduced screenplay about her early career, was bought by Universal in 2017. She posted on Instagram at the time: “Why would Universal Studios want to make a movie about me based on a script that is all lies???
“Nobody knows what I know and what I have seen. Only I can tell my story. Anyone else who tries is a charlatan and a fool.”