Madonna Reveals She Accidentally Started a Fire While ‘Living Illegally’ in New York City: ‘I Woke Up Surrounded by Flames’

Chart-topper Madonna has candidly admitted that she was started a fire in a New York City building where she was "living illegally" while trying to break into the music industry.

Today, the songstress, whose real name is Madonna Louise Ciccone, boasts an illustrious decadeslong career in the spotlight, has an estimated net worth of $850 million—and owns a host of properties across the globe. Yet she has now painted a very stark picture of how different her life was before she was "discovered" in the early 1980s.

The 67-year-old "Vogue" singer has opened up to Bilt founder Ankur Jain about her extraordinary living situation in her early 20s—revealing that she spent time residing in an "abandoned synagogue" in Queens and also "living illegally" in a building in Manhattan's Garment District, which she had to flee after accidentally setting fire to her room.

In honor of her newly-announced collaboration with the financial rewards company, which allows renters and homeowners to earn points on monthly housing payments, Madonna laid bare some of her wildest experiences of living in the Big Apple, when she had no money to afford accommodation.

"I was grinding, hustling everybody. Nothing was beneath me," she explains in a video interview with Jain. "I continue to live with space heaters [because] they feel nostalgic to me. I accidentally startd a fire with them.

"I was living illegally in a building in the Garment District, [and] there was no heat, it was the dead of winter. And everybody knows how cold New York winters are.

"I was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and I surrounded myself with some space heaters, and I started an electrical fire. But I was sleeping, so I woke up surrounded by flames."

Madonna—who now lives between London and New York City—explained that she had to "escape" the building in the wake of the fire, admitting that she found herself with nowhere to stay, nobody to call, and with no money to afford a real apartment.

So, she turned to The Music Building on Eighth Avenue, a property that is dedicated to providing musicians with a place to rehearse or, in Madonna's case, to live.

"I didn't have anywhere to live, so I escaped to this building called The Music Building," she recalled.

As it turned out, the building would end up becoming Madonna's home for a year—with the singer noting that she unofficially moved into the property after fleeing an abandoned synagogue in Queens, where she had been living with a former boyfriend.

"I was living in an abandoned synagogue in Queens; my boyfriend at the time was in a band, [and] we broke up because he wouldn't let me be the singer in the band. So I was like, 'I'm out,'" she revealed.

"So then I lived in The Music Building because I had nowhere to go. And The Music Building was full of people grinding to have a music career.

"There [were] bands, there was probably two to three bands per room. And you time-shared the room with people. I put my pillow where the bass drum is and that was where I slept with my head inside a drum."

Madonna was still living at The Music Building when she was finally discovered in the early 1980s, when she convinced DJ Mark Kamins to listen to her demo track at a nightclub called Danceteria. Having heard her material, Kamins then helped the singer to secure her first major record deal.

"I stopped living there when I got a record deal, when I was discovered by a DJ at Danceteria called Mark Kamins," she shared.

Yet the building remains an important part of the popstar's history—one that she is now honoring through her collaboration with Bilt, in which the company will pay the rent for every musician currently leasing space in The Music Building for the entire month of June.

"Artists arrive every day to New York, with a dream and more often than not with little else," Madonna said about the collaboration. "As much as I struggled when I showed up here with nothing, I look back very fondly on this time in my life.

"The creativity, diversity and community of artists all supporting each other while having the freedom to experiment is something I would have never experienced in another place."

"Founded in 1979, The Music Building has served as a working home for generations of New York artists—a place where musicians at every stage of their careers have come to rehearse, write, and find their footing in one of the world's most demanding creative cities," the company stated in a press release.

"Bilt's contribution honors the space that was part of Madonna's own origin story, and the artists continuing that tradition today."

In fact, her early days in New York served as the inspiration for her new album, "Confessions II," a follow-up to her 2005 release, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," which is due to be released on July 3—with a limited-edition vinyl being made available exclusively to Bilt members.

"There are so few artists who have shaped New York the way Madonna has," Jain noted. "She came to this city with next to nothing, and in building something extraordinary, she became part of its DNA. When we had the chance to work with her, we knew we had to honor that story—not just by celebrating the album, but by giving back to the building where she first found her sound.

"The Music Building has been a home to generations of artists who arrived in New York the same way she did: with big dreams and little else. We couldn't think of a more fitting way to mark this moment than making sure the artists in that building today don't have to choose between their rent and their art."

In addition to paying for the June rent at the building, Madonna has also taken part in Bilt's monthly game show, Rent Free, which allows the company's members to win up to $2,500 in rent payments.

Madonna initially moved to New York City when she was 20 years old, having dropped out of the University of Michigan in order to pursue her music career full time.

She has previously opened up about the hardships she faced after moving to the city, revealing in a searingly candid 2013 essay that she was held up at gunpoint and raped on the roof of a building during her first year living in Manhattan.

"New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be,” she penned in the piece for Harper's Bazaar. "It did not welcome me with open arms.

"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."

She also admitted that experiencing the hustle and bustle of the city for the first time was a bittersweet moment in her life—one that made her feel "alive" but also "scared s---less."

"This wasn't anything I prepared for in Rochester, Michigan," she wrote, adding: "I wondered if it was all worth it, but then I would pull myself together and look at a postcard of Frida Kahlo taped to my wall, and the sight of her mustache consoled me.

"Because she was an artist who didn't care what people thought. I admired her. She was daring. People gave her a hard time. Life gave her a hard time. If she could do it, then so could I."

As it turns out, Madonna would remain a true New Yorker for decades—and the songstress still maintains her primary residence in the city in the form of a stunning Upper East Side mansion, which she purchased for $40 million in 2009.

The Georgian-style residence offered 13 bedrooms and 12,000 square feet of living space across four stories. It is also known as one of the widest houses on the Upper East Side, stretching across 57 feet.

However, she has also expanded her property portfolio to include homes in several other locations, including Portugal, England, and the Hamptons.