Madonna Says She Nearly Burned Down NYC Building During Early Struggles in the ‘70s

Madonna is looking back at a dangerous moment from her early days in New York City, revealing that she once accidentally started a fire while trying to stay warm in a building where she was living illegally in the late 1970s.

The 67-year-old pop icon shared the story in a recent interview with Bilt founder and CEO Ankur Jain, reflecting on the difficult years before fame.

According to Hola, she explained that she was living in the Garment District during a freezing New York winter with no heat in the building.

"There was no heat in the dead of winter. Everybody knows how cold New York winters are," Madonna said. She recalled sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and surrounding herself with space heaters just to survive the cold nights.

Madonna Recalls Nearly Dying in NYC

That decision nearly turned deadly. "I started an electrical fire, but I was sleeping, so I woke up, and I was surrounded by flames," she said.

The incident happened when she was around 19 years old, long before her rise to global fame. At the time, she had been moving between temporary living spaces after leaving her boyfriend, who did not support her dream of becoming a singer.

With nowhere stable to live, Madonna eventually found her way to The Music Building on Eighth Avenue, a crowded space filled with struggling musicians trying to break into the industry. She described it as a chaotic but creative environment where multiple bands often shared the same rooms and space was extremely limited.

"The Music Building was full of people grinding to have a music career," she said, adding that she sometimes slept on the floor with just a pillow near a bass drum while chasing her dream, PageSix reported.

Despite the harsh conditions, she stayed there for about a year while working toward her breakthrough. That breakthrough eventually came when she handed a demo tape to DJ Mark Kamins at the famous Danceteria nightclub, leading to her first record deal with Sire Records in 1982.

Tags

Madonna, NYC