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Madonna opens up about drug use, losing her mom

Madonna, pictured in January 2014. Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

TORONTO — Using drugs is a spiritual experience, Madonna said in a new interview.

The 56-year-old pop superstar said the song “Devil Prays” from her forthcoming album is “about how people take drugs to connect to God or to a higher consciousness.”

In a conversation with magician David Blaine in the new issue of Interview magazine, Madonna said it’s all about “plugging into the matrix.”

She explained: “If you get high, you can do that, which is why a lot of people drop acid or do drugs, because they want to get closer to God.”

But the mother of four acknowledged the risks of using drugs.

“There’s going to be a short circuit, and that’s the illusion of drugs, because they give you the illusion of getting closer to God, but ultimately they kill you,” she said. “They destroy you.”

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As for her own drug experiences, Madonna revealed she has “tried everything once.”

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She told Blaine: “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.'”

Madonna appears on different covers of the new issue of ‘Interview’ magazine. Courtesy Interview

Madonna said at this point in her life she craves an escape from the noise in her life.

“I feel like people are always talking to me, at me, asking things, questioning me, wanting information, work, music, loud noises, children—it’s endless,” she said. “So the idea of a whole day of silence sounds very seductive to me.”

The singer treated Blaine to a few lines from her favourite childhood song, a campfire classic called “I Know a Place” (not to be confused with the Petula Clark song with the same title).

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“My mother sang it to me when I was 4,” Madonna recalled. “My children know it too.”

She described her French-Canadian mother — who died when Madonna was only 6 — as an angel who protects her.

Asked if her mother is a driving force behind her, Madonna answered: “I’m sure that, to a certain extent, she is, but actually her lack of presence would be the driving force.”

Madonna said losing her mother at such a young age made her “obsessed with death” and determined to “do as much as possible all the time to get the most out of life.”

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