Madonna has revealed she is living every day like it is her “last”.
The Material Girl star, 49, says she wants to achieve as much as she can with her life. So as a result she is working harder than ever, she told a US magazine.
She said: “You know what?
“Right now, I’m operating in the mode of ‘live every day like it’s your last day.’
“So there’s a sense of urgency in everything I do.”
The singer - who gave an interview to US magazine Interview - also told how she wrote several songs on new album, Hard Candy, with chart hunk Justin Timberlake.
She poses provocatively in a boxing ring for the cover of the magazine, wearing Chanel boxing gloves, lace-up knee-length boots and leopard skin shorts.
Madge said she and the SexyBack star discussed personal feelings and problems to spark their creative juices. She told the April 2008 issue of the publication: “I really enjoy writing with Justin.
“We had psychoanalytic sessions whenever we wrote songs first. We’d sit down and we’d start talking about situations. And then we’d start talking about issues or problems or relationships with people.
“That was the only way, because you know, writing together with somebody is very intimate.”
She went on: “That was fun, because he’s open and he’s got talent. He’s a songwriter. I haven’t worked with a lot of songwriters where I’m instantly connected and start riffing and playing with the rhythm of the words.
“He’s as interested in the rhythm of the words as the meaning of the words.”
The mother-of-two also divulged more details about her trip to the African nation of Malawi, which saw her adopt toddler David Banda - and told how daughter Lourdes looked after children in orphanages there.
She said: “She so came into her own and was so responsible and stayed for eight hours every day and worked tirelessly.
“I thought, why am I babying her so much? She’s capable of so much more.
“We don’t let kids do anything. We think, ‘Oh, they’re kids - they can’t take care of other kids; they can’t do this; they can’t do that.’
“And after you go to Africa, you drop all that silliness.
“[It’s important] my children see and experience that on a regular basis, so that they understand they breathe rarified air, and that it’s their job to share what they have with other people.”
She also told the magazine that she didn’t even know where Malawi was before she left - and had to look it up on a map. Madonna was interviewed by departing editor, Ingrid Sischy, in her last stint as the magazine chief.
Her upcoming documentary on Africa starts with a woman calling her up randomly and begging her to help Malawi.
“You say that you felt embarrassed because you didn’t know where Malawi was,” Sischy says. “And she [the caller] tells you to look it up on a map and hangs up.”
“Yeah, and I went there,” Madonna jokes.
Discussing how Madonna, 49, got the likes of Bill Clinton, Bishop Desmond Tutu, economist Jeffrey Sachs and anthropologist and “genius grant” recipient Paul Farmer to appear in her film, Sischy asks if she had to dole out any “benefits.”
“No,” the singer laughs. “No sexual favors either.”
Sischy has been editor-in-chief at Interview magazine - which was founded by Andy Warhol in 1969 - for 18 years after being recruited following the Pop Art icon’s death in 1987. She has chronicled the lives of the rich and fabulous from Donna Karan to Lindsay Lohan and Elizabeth Taylor.
Madonna adopted son David Banda from Malawi in October 2006.
Source: Show Bizz Spy