Madonna is suffering from minor whiplash after her horror fall onstage at the BRIT Awards, calling the incident a complete "nightmare".

The pop icon returned to the U.K. music prizegiving for the first time in 20 years on Wednesday night (25Feb15), but her headline-grabbing performance was marred by a shocking accident.

Just moments after beginning her new song Living for Love, Madonna fell backwards down a set of stairs after a dancer went to pull the long black Armani cape from her shoulders and it failed to come off.

Following the fall, she took to Instagram.com to assure fans she was "fine", but in a new interview with U.K. chat show host Jonathan Ross, which was recorded in London on Thursday (26Feb15), Madonna admitted she was still nursing an injury from the accident.

She told Ross, "I had little bit of whiplash, I smacked the back of my head. And I had a man standing over me with a flashlight until about 3 a.m. to make sure I was compos mentis (of sound mind)."

Speaking of the wardrobe malfunction, Madonna added, "I was told to tie my cape and start much further back and I had to walk further and everyone was worried my cape was slide off so they tied it really tight around my neck. I got to the top of the stairs and I pulled the silky string and it wouldn't come undone... I had two choices, I could either be strangled or fall, and I chose to fall."

Although she is okay, Madonna refused to watch playback of the scene on the chat show, branding the incident " a nightmare" and adding, "I actually created a horror show for everyone... No more capes, cape fear is over."

The interview is due to air in the U.K. over the weekend (28Feb-01Mar15).