Madonna didn’t even know where Malawi was before adopting a son from the African nation in 2006, she says in a new interview.
The “Like a Virgin” singer gets touched for the very last time by Ingrid Sischy in the departing editrix’s final piece in next month’s Interview magazine.
The Material Girl waxes idealistic as she talks about Malawi – admitting that she had to look it up on a map – her documentary, her children and her new album.
Her 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 the big M got heavy hitters like 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.”
She said going to Africa and seeing harsh poverty has benefited her kids.
“[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,” said Madonna.
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 to Elizabeth Taylor.