AceShowbiz - Madonna has risked a public backlash after likening the violation she felt following the unauthorised leak of her 2015 album "Rebel Heart" to rape.

The pop icon was discussing the poor commercial performance of the project in a candid interview with The New York Times when she made the comparison, admitting she was really hurt when her unfinished songs surfaced online, months before "Rebel Heart" planned release.

"There are no words to describe how devastated I was," Madonna recalled. "It took me a while to recover, and put such a bad taste in my mouth I wasn't really interested in making music."

"I felt raped," she added.

The singer, 60, has since returned to the recording studio and is gearing up to release her new album, "Madame X", next week, begs June 10, after drawing inspiration from her stay in Lisbon, Portugal, where she relocated with her four youngest kids in 2017 to allow her son David to attend a top soccer academy.