Madonna has stepped in to defend troubled pop star Britney Spears.

Madonna claims that Britney is struggling to cope with adulthood because she was never given the chance to grow up. She also thinks that the fact that Spears lived her teens in the spotlight of the entire world robbed her of the chance to have a normal childhood.

Madonna says, "I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that she was never allowed to have a childhood. She didn't get to grow up and make mistakes privately and try things out and just be a kid and be innocent."

"She's been watched, judged and been under a microscope since she's been a teenager. It's hard to evolve that way."

Madonna says as a mother of three she is determined to keeps her kids on the right path, even though she was a wild child when she was younger.

"I just remind them about all the things that they have, and that if I didn't do what I did they wouldn't have those things."

Madonna also says that her kids have no interest in becoming famous like herself or Spears saying, "They're sort of over it. They like to skateboard around (but) they get to travel a lot, they get to do a lot of interesting things and meet a lot of interesting people."