Madonna has defended the extreme language she used in hitting out at the hackers who leaked her music online.

The Queen of Pop took to Instagram last week to hit out at the hacking of unfinished demo tracks from her upcoming album calling it “artistic rape” and “a form of terrorism”, but then deleted the posts.

Madonna has now told the Guardian that she has been “living in a state of terror” since the leak, and revealed the tracks had very likely been stolen from her own personal computer.

Madonna had previously responded to the hacking by posting a picture of her smashed iPod saying it represented her broken heart.

She said: “Obviously there is a person, or a group of people behind this that were essentially terrorising me. I don’t want to sound alarming, but certainly that’s how I felt. It’s one thing if someone comes into your house and steals a painting off your wall: that’s also a violation, but, your work, as an artist, that’s devastating.

“I’m an artistic person, I’m very expressive. I’m sorry if words alarm people, but that’s what it felt like. It was not a consensual agreement. I did not say ‘hey, here’s my music, and it’s finished.’ It was theft.”

The 56-year-old singer’s quotes came as she released six tracks from her forthcoming album Rebel Heart on iTune without notice – immediately hitting number one in the iTunes chart in 36 countries.

Publicist Liz Rosenberg said the songs were released because several in-progress demos were leaked earlier this week.

The full album, Rebel Heart, is set for release in March. Rosenberg says additional tracks will be released on February 9.

In a statement, Madonna said she would prefer her fans hear completed versions of the songs rather than the “incomplete” tracks now making the rounds. She said she wanted fans to consider the songs “an early Christmas gift”.

Madonna confessed she had been very alarmed by the hacking of her music. She claimed it was much more serious than the recent leaking of other artist’s material such as Kanye West or Lady Gaga because the attack had come so early on her personal work, rather then simply being leaked from someone who worked within the music label a few weeks before release.

Madge said: “It wasn’t just music. Images were coming out that I’d never seen before. It was then I started to think OK, what’s happening? What is the source of the leak? It’s not just one person, or someone sitting next to me in an office, or someone in a recording studio. I’ve had leaks before, a couple of weeks before an album was released, a lot of other artists have too, we all have to deal with that. But to have songs in the earliest demo form, from last March, that’s extremely disturbing to me.”

She went on: “You have to rethink your approach to making music, how to get the information back and forth to people, how to work in a more secure environment. It’s alarming . Alarming because what do we do as artists? We want to finish writing our book or editing our film, we want to finish writing or producing our music. People need the arts, we need to be inspired, we need to hear people’s records and see people’s films. Why destroy that process for creative people? It’s going to affect everybody.”