Madonna Recalls Childhood Tragedy That ‘Forced’ Her to ‘Grow up Fast’

Madonna has recounted how she was “forced to grow up fast” at age five when she lost her mother.

In Becoming Madonna, a new documentary from Sky, the pop icon gets candid on the emotional handprint her mother left behind when she died from breast cancer at 30 in 1963.

“What happened you know when I was [5] years old, it was just the greatest event of my life,” Madonna says of her mother, Madonna Louise Ciccone’s, death in archival clips and audio featured throughout the documentary. “It was like a part of my heart was ripped out.”

“I was forced to grow up fast and understand my mother’s death, to understand the psychological, all things that were going on,” she continued. “It was too much for a child I think.”

The singer’s brother Christopher Ciccone, who died in October at 63, also reflects on their mother’s death in the documentary saying that when she died “things changed emotionally with everybody.”

“I know my father put a great deal more pressure on her to be our guide,” Christopher added on how their mother’s death affected his sister particularly. “She was our mother’s namesake, and her name was Madonna. I mean, it either crushes you or edifies you or elevates you to something else.”

On sharing the same name as her mother, Madonna said “it means a great deal to me.”

“It’s my mother’s name and I loved my mother, so there’s a link there,” she continued while also adding in a separate clip that her mother was “beautiful and sweet and a hard worker.”

The singer honored her late mother in an Instagram post for Mother’s Day last year, reflecting on her death and how she paid tribute to her during her recent Celebration tour.

“I stood on stage for 81 shows staring up at the beautiful face of my mother and wondering what she must’ve been thinking as she waved goodbye to me from her hospital window. I stepped into the station wagon and shut the door not knowing it was the last time I’d see her,” Madonna wrote alongside an image of her staring up at her mother’s photo while on stage.

“When I stepped out on the stage and looked up at my mothers face every night I said hello, I said goodbye, I said thank you,” she continued. “I hope you’re proud of me.”