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According to Page Six, MADONNA opens up in the upcoming issue of Interview magazine about her young son she adopted from Malawi in 2006. "He wouldn't have lived if I hadn't taken him," she says of DAVID. "It's not even a possibility."

She says that her daughter LOURDES even came with her to David's home country.

"She spent several weeks working in the orphanages, particularly one with newborn children, and most of them were HIV-positive," she says. "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."

The singer lightens things up as she talks about collaborating with JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE for her album I Am Because We Are out next month.

"We'd sit down and we'd start talking about situations," she says of their process. "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 ... 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."