Lady Gaga: The rape changed me forever

Lady Gaga has recently opened up about how she felt after she endured rape. The singer revealed she had a breakdown after a music producer raped her when she was 19 and added that this trauma changed her forever. He told her to take off her clothes, threatening to destroy her music. Then, he dumped on the street while she was pregnant.

Lady Gaga: The rape changed me forever

Gaga told her story on The Me You Can’t See, Apple TV’s new mental health docuseries produced and hosted by Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey.

“I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off.’ And I said no. And I left, and they told me they were going to burn all of my music. And they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop asking me, and I just froze and… I don’t even remember.”

The singer confessed that after the assault she suffered with self-harming and a “psychotic break”.

She told: “I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after, and I realised that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner.”

Then, she added: “I had a total psychotic break, and for a couple years, I was not the same girl. The way that I feel when I feel pain was how I felt after I was raped. I’ve had so many MRIs and scans where they don’t find nothing. But your body remembers.”

Speaking about self-harming, she explained: “Even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is getting triggered once to feel bad. And when I say I feel bad, I mean I want to cut. Think about dying. Wondering if I’m ever going to do it. I learned all the ways to pull myself out of it.

“You know why it’s not good to cut?’, she added. “You know why it’s not good to throw yourself against the wall? You know why it’s not good to self-harm? Because it makes you feel worse. You think you’re going to feel better because you’re showing somebody, ‘Look, I’m in pain.’ It doesn’t help.”

The popstar decided to share her story to help people who are in the same situation. She said: “I don’t tell this story for my own self-service, because, to be honest, it’s hard to tell. I feel a lot of shame about it. How do I explain to people that I have privilege, I’ve got money, I’ve got power, and I’m miserable? How do you do that?

“I’m not here to tell my story to you because I want anybody to cry for me. I’m good. But open your heart up for somebody else. Because I’m telling you, I’ve been through it and people need help. So, that’s part of my healing, being able to talk to you.”