Madonna began to suspect her closest colleagues of leaking her new music after failing to pinpoint how the songs ended up online.

The Holiday hitmaker was furious when several unfinished versions of her latest tracks leaked online last year (14), weeks before the planned release of her album Rebel Heart, prompting her to rush out a slew of new songs.

A suspect was arrested in Israel on 21 January (15) on suspicion of hacking Madonna's computer and leaking the tracks, and the singer has now revealed she initially cast doubt on members of her own team before she found out her system had been illegally accessed by an outsider.

She tells Australian TV show Today, "At first I was (pointing the finger at people) because we couldn't figure out... you know, what's the common denominator. We were all ripping our hair out trying to figure out who is leaking this information? How is it getting out there? So it's a great relief to know (it wasn't a team member), but also extremely disturbing (to be hacked)."