A songwriter who worked with Madonna has revealed how she reacted when he told her ‘f**k you’ during a studio session.

Toby Gad – who co-wrote 11 tracks with Madonna on her 2014 album Rebel Heart – recalled what happened during a tense moment between them in the studio.

Speaking to MailOnline, he said: ‘Madonna is an incredible performer and her stage shows are unbelievable. She’s iconic, but vocally I felt maybe we could expand it a little bit.

‘I mean, I’ve worked with some incredible vocalists. And I felt maybe Madonna can get just a little better with the performance.

‘So I kept telling her, do it again and try to feel it more and try it again and again – maybe just put more passion into it and so on.

The writer said he heard a rumour Madonna fires people by announcing she is going to the bathroom and then her assistant will pull the performer aside and tell them they have been let go.

Worried the same thing was going to happen to him, Toby added: ‘At some point she was like, ‘F**k you, Toby. I’m not singing this again.’

‘And I instinctively said ‘F*** you, Madonna, you are singing this again.’ And then there was silence in the room and I was waiting for her to go to the bathroom.

‘And that didn’t happen and somehow we bonded over this and we spent another five weeks together in total.’

Toby first met Madonna at a writing camp and described coming face-to-face with the Queen of Pop as an ‘intimidating’ experience.

He said: ‘I did a writing camp with Madonna in New York and on the first day she showed up.

‘You don’t know whether she is going to turn up or not and then her assistant comes in and starts tidying things up and brings in incense candles and lights them everywhere.

‘Then the bathroom gets locked off and you have to use the one downstairs, so it’s the whole royal preparation. Eventually lights get dimmed and then she walks in.

‘It’s intimidating at first but we had a week together and recorded some songs and I was quite honest with her.’

He added: ‘There were rumours going around that if you cross her the wrong way, if you do something she doesn’t like or you say something she doesn’t like then she will ‘go to the bathroom’ and then her assistant will come out and say, “Here’s your ticket home and the taxi is waiting downstairs. You have five minutes to vacate the premises. She does not want to see you when she comes back.”

‘So we were all a little nervous but thankfully, that didn’t happen to us!’

MailOnline has contacted representatives of Madonna for comment.

Toby was speaking as he releases his new album ‘Piano Diaries – The Hits’, which has new versions of some of the biggest tracks he has co-written including Beyonce’s ‘If I Were A Boy’, ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ by Fergie and John Legend’s ‘All Of Me’.

He has teamed up on the album with up and coming stars like Celina Sharma, Keke Palmer and Angelina Jordan as well as X Factor winner Louisa Johnson to cover the songs.