Lady Gaga revealed that she was raped as a teenager and said that it took her years of therapy to acknowledge and start to recover from the trauma.
The 33-year-old singer appeared at the opening night of Oprah Winfrey’s Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus arena tour on Saturday at BB&T Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
“I was raped repeatedly when I was 19 years old, and I also developed PTSD as a result of being raped and also not processing that trauma.” …I all of a sudden became a star and was traveling the world going from hotel room to garage to limo to stage, and I never dealt with it, and then all of a sudden I started to experience this incredible intense pain throughout my entire body that mimicked the illness I felt after I was raped,” she explained.
She also discussed her fibromyalgia diagnosis, explaining she was in “head-to-toe pain” even while talking to Oprah.
“What’s interesting about it is that I’ve found through neuropsych research and my relationship with my doctors that fibromyalgia can be treated through mental health therapy. And mental health is a medical condition, it should be treated as a medical condition. It should not be ignored.”
During that time Gaga quickly rose to fame, and said she didn’t have a doctor or therapist to help her process her trauma.
Gaga also advocated for mental health classes and education in schools during the talk. After the talk, Winfrey spoke with Gaga backstage and thanked her. “You were so amazing,” Winfrey said, tearing up. “You were so vulnerable, you were so truthful, you were so real…Nobody does that, and you just did it.”
During their conversation, Winfrey also asked Gaga about any future projects after the wild success ofA Star Is Born. Gaga said that a new album is in the works, but she’s going to take her time with it. She also intends to check in with herself and her well-being throughout the process.
“We’re having a self-care conversation, but I’m still going to make music, don’t worry,” she said.