In a personal essay published in Harper's Bazaar this month, Madonna, the pop legend opened up about how she was sexually assaulted at the start of her career.

According to the Daily Mail, the singer was raped at knife point on the roof of a building in New York just after she had moved there.

"New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms," Madonna wrote. "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."

The singer chronicled her life from her teenage years all the way up to the present, admitting that at times it had been difficult: 'I didn't have many friends; I might not have had any friends. But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren't popular and you don't have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future."

"And for me, that was going to New York to become a REAL artist. To be able to express myself in a city of nonconformists. To revel and shimmy and shake in a world and be surrounded by daring people."

Madonna embarked on her new life with just $35 dollars in her back pocket: 'I was scared s***less and freaked out by the smell of piss and vomit everywhere, especially in the entryway of my third-floor walk-up,' she recalled.

"When you're 25, it's a little bit easier to be daring, especially if you are a pop star, because eccentric behavior is expected from you."

Images from Harper's Bazaar.