Madonna reveals rape at knifepoint when young

US pop icon Madonna was raped at knifepoint when she was young and newly arrived in New York, she revealed in an article in Harper's Bazaar. Describing her arrival in the Big Apple from the Midwest, where she grew up, she wrote: "New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms," and described "paying my rent by posing nude for art classes, staring at people staring at me naked." "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. "The tall buildings and the massive scale of New York took my breath away. The sizzling-hot sidewalks and the noise of the traffic and the electricity of the people rushing by me on the streets was a shock to my neurotransmitters," she added.